In 2010, Kingsmill Bond captured first place on this lineup, planting the Troika Dialog flag. He moved to Citi the next year and slipped to second place, while his old firm was being acquired by Sberbank. The 46-year-old strategist jumped back to Sberbank CIB in April 2013, and this year he reclaims the top spot, advancing from No. 3. “Kingsmill seems to have limitless solutions to any variety of geopolitical scenarios,” one portfolio manager marvels. Bond astutely recommended in October that investors favor preferred shares over their ordinary counterparts, citing the preferreds’ “superior dividend streams at lower valuations,” he explains. In particular, he highlighted the preferreds of Surgutneftegas, an oil and natural-gas exploration and refining company based in Surgut. By the end of May, they had climbed 7.8 percent, to 26 rubles, outperforming their ordinary counterparts by 20.8 percentage points and besting the broad Russian market by 15.5 percentage points. Moreover, they delivered a payout ratio of nearly 40 percent. Going forward, he is expecting certain growth stocks to perform well. Examples include Netherlands-based Yandex, operator of Russia’s largest Internet search engine, and real estate developer and builder LSR Group, which is headquartered in St. Petersburg. Bond also prefers companies that boast high returns on equity, such as Moscow-based telecommunications giant MegaFon and the Moscow Exchange, which operates public trading markets. |
The 2014 All-Russia Research Team: Equity Strategy, No. 1: Kingsmill Bond
