Investment Grade – Basic Materials(IG): Second

Previously unranked Bank of America Merrill Lynch soars to second place. The four-member team is based in London and is guided by Patrick Kersting, who also co-leads No. 3 teams in two High-Yield sectors: Basic Materials (with Davide Chiesa) and Manufacturing/General Industrials (with Teofilo Lasarte). Winning recommendations of late include a May upgrade to overweight on Glencore International’s five-year credit default swaps, which the analysts dubbed a bargain at 360 basis points. They were optimistic about the Anglo-Swiss commodities trader and metals producer’s pending merger with rival Xstrata, which was announced in February, and they were right. Although the merger is not expected to be completed until the end of the first quarter, by mid-January the swaps had tightened by 175 basis points, to 185; during the same period the iTraxx Europe HiVol index narrowed by 78 basis points. “They go out on a limb and help us make money,” asserts one fund manager in New York. — Ben Mattlin