< The 2016 All-Europe Research Team

Total Appearances: 9

Team Debut: 2008

For a sixth year in a row, Sanford C. Bernstein’s Trevor Stirling occupies this winner’s circle, earning plaudits from one investor for his “excellent work on strategic issues and industry trends — not only number crunching.” Working out of London, the 54-year-old researcher covers eight European beverages companies and has recently shifted his position on former favorite Heineken. An enthusiastic backer of the Dutch brewer for some five years, Stirling long believed that the investment community was not fully appreciating the potential for growth in the beer-maker’s portfolio of emerging-markets businesses and its ability to push long-term market expansion. In late October, however, when the stock was up 45.8 percent for the trailing 12-month period, at €83.35, and leading its peers in the region by 27.8 percentage points, he downgraded Heineken from outperform to market perform. Those attributes he had considered undervalued are fully priced in, the analyst contends, and the valuation is getting a bit too frothy. That feeling extends to the wider group more generally, too. “We are cautious on the sector,” he reports. “The pricing environment remains extremely difficult in Europe, and relative valuations are close to all- time highs.”