A runner-up for the past three years, Kenneth Worthington leapfrogs to No. 2. The J.P. Morgan researcher is praised by one ally for his “timely reports about the overall industry” and for being “ahead of consensus.” Worthington, forecasting that a long-expected rotation to equities from fixed income will happen in 2014, expects select asset managers to profit from this development. These firms will “benefit on the equity side and won’t get hurt on the fixed-income side,” he contends. One example is Invesco, an Atlanta-based manager that oversees $720 billion in assets. Invesco boasts strong equity products and has “relatively limited exposure,” he says, to the retail and institutional fixed-income funds that are most likely to see redemptions. Another preferred name, T. Rowe Price Group, delivered “one of the best fund performances in the equity universe,” Worthington notes. Equities account for three quarters of the Baltimore-based firm’s $614 billion in assets under management, he explains, while fixed income derives mostly from target-date funds (which handle asset allocations for the investor) that are “more immune from redemptions,” he concludes. — Carolyn Koo |
The 2013 All-America Research Team: Brokers, Asset Managers & Exchanges, No. 2: Kenneth Worthington