< The 2014 All-America Research Team
Total Appearances: 16
Analyst Debut: 1996Steven Fleishman of Wolfe Research “is very good at identifying and explaining the key drivers of the stocks he covers,” one fund manager attests. Another admirer is more ardent still: “He’s the best analyst in the space and certainly the best stock picker on the sell side,” the investor insists. These traits help propel Fleishman back up to first place this year — he slipped to No. 2 on this lineup in 2013 — and raises the All-America Research Team Hall of Famer’s total number of top finishes to 12. U.S. electric utilities shares climbed 11 percent year to date through mid-September, leading the domestic broad market by 3.7 percentage points, and Fleishman is cautious on the group going forward. He cites both higher-than-normal valuations and the risks that utilities face with the prospect of a normalizing economy and higher interest rates. Despite these challenges, he is bullish on companies that operate gas pipelines, or otherwise have exposure to expansion of the natural-gas industry, because “we’re continuing to build out infrastructure to meet rising supply and demand for natural gas,” the 45-year-old researcher explains. “There’s just a glut of gas being produced in the Marcellus and Utica shales, and everyone’s looking for transport out of there to market.” One name he likes on those terms is San Diego–based Sempra Energy, which is poised to grow earnings in the low double digits from now until the end of the decade, he contends. Catalysts include Sempra’s positioning to benefit from selling liquefied-natural-gas overseas. Its Cameron LNG export facility in Louisiana is slated to come online in 2018 and represent almost one quarter of the company’s earnings, says Fleishman. Moreover, the diversified utility is the largest private owner of energy infrastructure in Mexico and “one of the last remaining companies that could do [a master limited partnership] that hasn’t done one yet — but they will,” he says. “It’s just a matter of the Cameron project coming closer into view.”