Simon Garing, Chi Hung (Raymond) Ngai & team Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Advancing from runner-up to third place is the Bank of America Merrill Lynch team of 20 deployed across Asia — in Bangkok, Hong Kong, Mumbai, Seoul, Singapore, Sydney and Taipei. Leading the group are Sydney-based Simon Garing and Chi Hung (Raymond) Ngai, who also co-directs the team ranked No. 1 for coverage of Hong Kong, where he is headquartered. “Garing has good industry knowledge and understands quite well what the buy side needs in terms of recommendations, while Ngai differentiates himself by translating the complex world into more concrete trends and conclusions,” explains one advocate. The analysts chose Australia’s Westfield Group as their top pick for the year, on the strength of the shopping center developer’s stable revenues, geographically diversified portfolio and attractive valuation, among other factors. The stock surged 16.3 percent in the first quarter and bested Australia’s broad market by 9.9 percentage points. — ­Leslie Kramer