Institutional Investor's 2012 ranking of Europe's Best Brokerages reflects the performance of sell-side firms across our four All-Europe equity and fixed-income survey platforms: the All-Europe Research Team, All-Europe Sales Team, All-Europe Trading Team and All-Europe Fixed-Income Research Team. As reigning winner of the three equity rankings (and defending champion of the All-Europe Research Team), Frankfurt-based Deutsche Bank easily outpaces all others to claim the mantel of Europe's Best Brokerage . Firms have to meet minimum-vote and other eligibility requirements to appear in II's rankings; results of the four surveys were retabulated to determine the brokerage winners.

J.P. Morgan Cazenove takes second place among the eligible brokerage houses. J.P. Morgan is No. 1 on the All-Europe Fixed-Income Research Team for a second consecutive year; the firm lands at No. 4 on the All-Europe research and trading teams and at No. 3 on the All-Europe Sales Team. When these aggregated totals are further screened by the country in which each firm is domiciled, Deutsche Bank is deemed Germany's Best Brokerage and J.P. Morgan Cazenove is the U.K.'s Best Brokerage. Other winners in this category include Exane BNP Paribas (France's Best Brokerage), Kempen & Co. (the Netherlands' Best Brokerage), Santander Investment Bolsa (Iberia's Best Brokerage), SEB Enskilda (Nordic Countries' Best Brokerage) and UBS (Switzerland's Best Brokerage). For the purposes of this ranking, global banks headquartered outside Europe are considered domiciled in the country in which their primary European operations are based.