< The 2015 Latin America Research Team
Total Appearances: 11
Team Debut: 2005Credit Suisse advances from second place to notch its first top finish on this roster. The firm’s three-strong squad is captained by Bruno Savaris, who also directs the group to a repeat No. 2 showing on the Transportation lineup. From their offices in Mexico City and São Paulo, the analysts report on seven Latin American capital goods names, winning praise for “keeping clients up to date on news flows and flawlessly finding the right drivers for investment performance,” as one portfolio manager puts it. Among the names Savaris and his team favor is Iochpe-Maxion, a Brazilian maker of wheels and chassis for buses, trains and trucks. They have long held an outperform position on the stock, crediting the company’s exposure to geographically diverse markets, management’s successful cost-cutting efforts and a generally positive operational trend. In March they issued a cautionary note on the outlook for Brazil’s capital goods industry, noting increasingly negative producer sentiment, but reiterated their bullish stance on Iochpe for the medium to long term. The company is well positioned to benefit from a likely currency depreciation and increased infrastructure spending, Credit Suisse’s analysts believe. The shares were then trading at 10.19 reais, off 16.5 percent year to date and lagging their regional peers by 12.9 percentage points. They reached bottom two weeks later, however, and had by mid-July rallied 20.1 percent, to 12.24 reais, besting the sector by 12.4 percentage points. Savaris, 31, joined the firm in July 2007, upon earning a bachelor’s degree in computer engineering from Rio de Janeiro’s Instituto Militar de Engenharia. He “has deep industry knowledge,” one fund manager says, “and his research is excellent.”