The 2015 All-Europe Research Team: United Kingdom, No. 2: Mark Braley & team

Deutsche Bank’s London-based team headed by Mark Braley slips back to the No. 2 position it earned in 2013.

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< The 2015 All-Europe Research Team

2015-03-tom-johnson-all-europe-research-team-mark-braley.jpg

Mark Braley & team
Deutsche Bank
First-place appearances: 1

Total appearances: 6

Team debut: 2002

Deutsche Bank’s London-based team headed by Mark Braley slips back to the No. 2 position it earned in 2013. The 45 researchers continue to win investor favor, however, for being “very experienced, very savvy — they’re not pushing a new idea on you every day,” in the words of one fund manager. “I find them very good on pharmaceuticals and telecommunications, and they’re very consistent.” One preferred name among the 185 stocks in their sector portfolio is Carnival. The British-American global leader in the cruise industry is neatly situated to take advantage of powerful demographic and leisure trends, the analysts believe. Moreover, “a series of operational issues in recent years leaves earnings still depressed,” says Braley, 42, making the 17 times estimated 2015 price-earnings ratio a “compelling value proposition.” They assign Carnival’s London Stock Exchange–listed shares a price objective of 3,040p; they were trading at 2,997p at the end of last month. London-based life insurance underwriter Aviva is also a favorite. Investors reacted negatively to management’s November announcement of its intention to acquire rival Friends Life Group of Guernsey for £5.6 billion ($8.8 billion), sending the stock down as much as 13 percent, to 463.30p, by early January. But Deutsche’s analysts insist that the resulting savings and synergies from creating Britain’s largest life insurance concern — for example, cost-cutting could shed as many as 2,000 jobs, while the newly configured Aviva will count one in four U.K. households as customers — should make the stock a good pickup. They peg Aviva’s shares at 620p.

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