Natalya Zagvozdina Renaissance
second team Victoria Grankina Troika
third team Odile Lange-Broussy BofA–Merrill Lynch
Combining “the best top-down view on various consumer segments” with “access to the decision-makers in the companies that she covers,” as one buy-sider puts it, keeps Natalya Zagvozdina , 37, in the top spot for a sixth straight year. The Renaissance Capital analyst made a prescient call on Magnit, telling investors in October to buy the discount food retailer’s shares because the economic slowdown would increase demand for its products. That was a good call: Magnit’s profits soared 100.7 percent year-over-year in the first quarter, to 3.45 billion rubles ($101.7 million), and net income surged 160.4 percent, to 1.8 billion rubles. Magnit’s share price skyrocketed 128.1 percent through April, far outpacing the Russian Trading System consumer and retail index’s 10 percent advance. Victoria Grankina of Troika Dialog, who repeats in second place, provides “timely, simple analysis of news and its impact,” according to one investor. In February Grankina highlighted her long-standing buy recommendation on X5 Retail Group, Russia’s largest retailer by revenue, on strong demand. By the end of April, X5’s global depositary receipts had shot up 100 percent. Unranked last year, Odile Lange-Broussy of Banc of America Securities–Merrill Lynch finishes third. In May 2008 the analyst downgraded Wimm-Bill-Dann Foods to neutral, saying declining milk prices would undercut the dairy products manufacturer’s profitability. Through April the stock trailed the consumer and retail index by 10.8 percentage points.
