Bank of America Merrill Lynch rockets from runner-up to claim its first appearance atop the roster. This year Claudio Irigoyen, 43, shares leadership responsibilities with newcomer Jane Brauer, 62. “Their in-depth experience and understanding of the intricacies of emerging-markets credits shine through in their ability to provide excellent relative-value opinions,” applauds one backer. The five-member crew, with strategists in New York and São Paulo, is keeping a close watch on regional and global issues. “The increase in U.S. rates has induced a significant repricing of external debt, in particular for those countries where spreads had tightened beyond what fundamentals would dictate,” Brauer explains. Within Latin America the most important developments to watch are the implementation of structural reforms in Mexico and the evolution of fiscal policy in Brazil, where attempts to control inflation have constrained economic growth. Money managers should look for instruments of short duration and avoid those issued by countries with weak fundamentals, “as those will suffer the burden of portfolio adjustments in external debt,” Irigoyen says. “In the short run we expect external debt to be mostly influenced by the dynamics of U.S. monetary policy.” He earned a Ph.D. in economics at the University of Chicago and served as chief economist at Argentina’s central bank and then global strategist at Deutsche Bank Securities before joining BofA Merrill in 2011. Irigoyen also co-leads, with David Beker, the team at No. 3 in Local-Markets Strategy. Brauer, who holds a Ph.D. in applied statistics from California’s Stanford University, has been with the firm since 1992. Before that she was a fixed-income analyst at Goldman, Sachs & Co., Credit Suisse and Citi. — Carolyn Koo |
Economics & Strategy – Sovereign Debt: First
