< The 2015 All-Europe Research Team
Peter Elwin & team
J.P. Morgan Cazenove
First-place appearances: 2
Total appearances: 10
Team debut: 2006
For a fourth consecutive year, the J.P. Morgan Cazenove duo led by Peter Elwin earns second-place honors, marking the firm’s tenth appearance on this list in as many years. Elwin, who works out of London, and his Mumbai-based colleague still urge companies to “provide clear reconciliations to [generally accepted accounting principles] audited figures, to be consistent year-on-year and to have a justifiable economic rationale underpinning any differences between GAAP and their chosen non-GAAP metrics,” the team leader says. They also believe that inadequate segment reporting is “likely to continue to be a source of frustration for investors and analysts in some cases,” he says, while volatile bond yields and poor disclosures of regulatory funding deficits “will continue to make evaluating pension deficits a challenge.” In addition, a new and more detailed U.K. audit report, with requirements that went into effect in 2013 for auditors to deliver more information on risks relating to their audit opinions, is “a benchmark for other countries and the European Union to follow, but it remains to be seen if investors will drive that process,” Elwin concludes. Lauds one investor, “I get in touch with him when I need help, and he is always very responsive and knowledgeable.”