< The 2015 All-Europe Research Team
Andrew Stott & team
Bank of America Merrill Lynch
First-place appearances: 6
Total appearances: 28
Team debut: 1988
Andrew Stott’s Bank of America Merrill Lynch crew in London earns second-place honors for a fifth consecutive year. Stott, 44, directs four researchers in covering 24 European chemicals companies. He and his cohorts win client loyalty with “their invaluable insights and solid calls,” as one investor says, pointing to their recent downgrade of Arkema, a manufacturer of industrial chemicals and plastics. The analysts lowered their rating on the French company from buy to neutral last January, at €79.83, citing concerns about slumping sales of its acrylic acid, fluorogases for refrigeration and specialty polymers. The stock subsequently traded as low as €46.76 in mid-October before turning upward to end January at €63.50, off by 20.5 percent since their call and behind its regional peers by 27.7 percentage points. “They are good at actively looking after me and keeping me up to date,” offers another fund manager, who applauds the February 2014 return of Laurent Favre to BofA Merrill from hedge fund Millennium Partners.