Andreas Neubauer & team, Deutsche Bank
The buy side says: “They have a broader vision than anyone else.”
Andreas Neubauer, 47, shepherds the Deutsche Bank squad to a 16th straight appearance in the No. 1 spot. With 20 team members in Frankfurt and 16 more working out of London, Vienna and Zurich, the researchers track 140 German companies with “excellent top-down research — and they have home-field advantage, so they know what the Bundesbank is thinking, what the rules of the constitutional court are and what the politicians are doing,” notes one ally. Although Germany’s benchmark DAX index tumbled 14.7 percent last year, the analysts believe a turnaround is coming. “Our cautious stance on the DAX for the first quarter is in line with our negative economic outlook. We expect the first quarter to be the weakest in 2012, with –0.4 percent real gross domestic product growth quarter-over-quarter for the euro zone and –0.2 percent for Germany,” Neubauer says. “We expect a positive DAX performance once economic leading indicators have bottomed.” Munich’s Linde is the group’s top pick, owing to the industrial-gas provider’s exposure to emerging markets. The stock led the sector by 17.8 percentage points in 2011, and the team expects continued outperformance.
