< The 2016 All-Asia Research Team
Mulya Chandra, Sean Gardiner & team
Morgan Stanley
First-Place Appearances: 2
Total Appearances: 3
Team Debut: 2014
Despite a change in its leadership, Morgan Stanley’s Indonesia equities research team repeats in first place. Newcomers Mulya Chandra and Sean Gardiner have taken over from Wee-Kiat Tan and Hozefa Topiwalla, who shifted to other positions with the firm, and shepherd an eight-person crew that monitors 50 companies. The squad “helps us make sense of fast-changing developments with a consistent and objective take on sector trends,” affirms one money manager. Specifically, another client observes, the analysts “were right about slowing loan momentum and increasing asset-quality risks in the banking sector.” One name in that industry that they continue to advise clients to underweight is state-owned Bank Negara Indonesia (Persero). They became more cautious on the Jakarta-based financial services provider in June 2014, in part because of risks from interest rate hikes, and reduced their rating on the stock from equal weight. As of late last month, the shares were trading very near their price at the time of the team’s downgrade, at 4,895 rupiah. Over the same period Indonesia’s broad market gained 2.2 percent. During the trailing 12 months alone, however, Bank Negara slumped 31.1 percent, lagging its domestic peers by 19.5 percentage points. Chandra, who works out of Jakarta, joined Morgan Stanley in June 2013 and holds a bachelor’s degree in economics and accounting from the University of Indonesia. Singapore-based Gardiner, who signed on with the firm in January 2000, also co-captains groups that appear on three additional lineups: with Nicholas Lord, at No. 1 in Singapore; with Navin Killa, in third place in Malaysia; and with Mayank Maheshwari, at runner-up in Thailand.