< The 2016 All-Europe Research Team

Total appearances: 25

Team debut: 1994

In second place is Emmet Kelly’s crew at Morgan Stanley, which rockets from runner-up. In the opinion of at least one fund manager, this European telecommunications team is "simply the best. Emmet has done a fantastic job on covering Cellnex [Telecom] and is the best analyst on towers." Morgan Stanley’s globally dispersed squad reports on 25 companies and views the regional sector as attractive. "We hold an improved top-line-growth-rate outlook for 2016 for both European wireless — driven by LTE and data — and fixed-line — boosted by fiber and TV — industries," says Kelly. "We also believe the European telco sector screens attractively on free-cash-flow valuation (7.2 percent FCF to equity yield) and dividend return (5.0 percent yield) metrics. Further, we believe attractive subsectors will include cable, towers and potential takeover candidates." The 40-year-old director of coverage joined his firm in May 2014 from Bank of America Merrill Lynch, where he held the same position and guided his team to runner-up in 2013 and 2014. He previously tracked the global sector at New Street Research and regional telecom equities at BNP Paribas. Kelly received a bachelor of commerce degree in economics from the National University of Ireland, Galway.