< The 2016 All-Europe Research Team

Total appearances: 18

Team debut: 1994

It’s three years in a row in second place for Morgan Stanley’s crew, which has been overseen by Emmanuel Turpin and Bobby Chada since 2005. Turpin, 47, is stationed in Paris; and Chada, 41, works out of London. Of the 40 European utilities in their group’s coverage universe, French electricity transmitter Électricité de France has recently fallen out of favor. In September the analysts lowered their rating on EDF from equal weight to underweight, citing earnings pressure from the unwinding of regulated rates, and by mid-January the stock had slumped 30.3 percent, to €11.87. During the same period, regional utilities names as a whole traded flat. They had, eight months earlier, shifted their position in the other direction on Veolia Environnement, a France-based provider of such diverse public services as drinking water, transit and waste management. Crediting management’s cost-saving restructuring plan and Veolia’s high dividend, the Morgan Stanley crew boosted its rating on the shares from equal weight to overweight. Sure enough, through the middle of last month, they had soared 45.3 percent, to €20.59, outperforming their European peers by 52.1 percentage points. Chada, Turpin and their colleagues believe that fundamentals justify a price of €25. "They are the most experienced team yet keep working as hard as they did when they were starting out," marvels one fund manager.