Unranked last year, David Barden of Bank of America Merrill Lynch returns in third place, his best showing since 2006. His sector portfolio encompasses 21 names, and he expects that number to change in coming months to reflect M&A activity and new listings. “Dave has great relationships with company managements, which gives him his edge,” one booster contends. “He understands how they think and thus how they will act in certain scenarios.” Over the past year, Barden has focused on “analyzing and reacting to consolidation transactions,” he says. He has had a fair amount to cover, noting the “SoftBank [Corp.] bid for Sprint [Corp.], the ensuing battle with Dish [Network Corp.], the further competitive-bid process for Clearwire [Corp.], the merger of MetroPCS [Communications] and T-Mobile USA — and the activist contest that emerged there — and the recent AT&T bid for Leap [Wireless International].” The remainder of the year, he expects, will be devoted to assessing how the surviving entities — Overland Park, Kansas–based Sprint and T-Mobile US of Bellevue, Washington — vie with stalwarts AT&T of Dallas and New York’s Verizon Communications for market share, and “whether it is possible that winners can truly emerge from such a competitive engagement,” the researcher adds. Even so, he maintains a contrarian underperform rating on both Sprint and T-Mobile, “which we expect to play out over the next 12 months.” — Pam Baker |
The 2013 All-America Research Team: Telecom Services, No. 3: David Barden