< The 2015 All-America Research Team
Kevin Fischbeck
Bank of America Merrill Lynch
First-place appearances: 0
Total appearances: 7
Analyst debut: 2011
Claiming third place on this new lineup — Health Care Facilities and Managed Care previously were separate sectors — is Kevin Fischbeck of Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Last year he recorded his second consecutive third-place showing for coverage of facilities names and earned a runner-up position for his reporting on managed care providers. The researcher “has been very helpful with his analysis of the effects of the [Patient Protection and] Affordable Care Act on his sectors,” one portfolio manager comments. “His company analysis is always very detailed and well thought out.” Fischbeck, 38, has a positive outlook on U.S. hospital operators, projecting that “volume rebound through year end and health care reform will continue to lower bad debt, and capital deployment will remain an underappreciated catalyst.” He is likewise upbeat on the future for managed care companies, advising that the trend for capitation payments, whereby service providers control costs, is “largely under control, and we expect upside from pending consolidation.” The analyst continues to tout Franklin, Tennessee’s Community Health Systems, a hospital operator that he notes is “benefiting from health care reform, an improving economy, stabilizing volume trends and upside from the Health Management Associates acquisition” completed in January 2014. His 12-month price objective for the stock is $74, which implies a 51.5 percent upside to its trading level in mid-September. Fischbeck “has a comprehensive understanding of the sector that few other analysts possess,” another admirer contends. “I find his research most relevant and practical in my investment work.”