Cesar Medina & team Morgan Stanley First-place appearances: 1
Total appearances: 6
Team debut: 1994 Cesar Medina and his Morgan Stanley cohorts captured the No. 3 spot on this roster in 2011, climbed to second place the next year and now advance to the top, notching the firm’s first appearance at No. 1. Medina, 36, earned a bachelor’s degree in economics at Peru’s Universidad del Pacífico and an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He joined Morgan Stanley in 2008 to cover metals and mining shares, as he had done at Bear, Stearns & Co. before moving, and previously worked as a credit analyst at Banco Santander and Credicorp in Peru. Medina moved to his current strategy post in 2009 and this year, with Guilherme Paiva, also co-captains the No. 2 squad in Chile coverage as well as a team that captures a runner-up spot for its tracking of Argentina. His North Andean Countries group — whose members are based in Mexico City, New York and São Paulo — is touting Colombia’s and Peru’s attractive fundamentals, but the researchers advise clients to keep in mind that the neighboring countries are in different stages of their economic cycles. In Colombia, although the real impact of government funding in road projects should be felt starting in the second half of 2015, Medina says, “the current economics of some of these projects may not be attractive for construction firms.” Regarding Peru, he adds, “the end of the commodity supercycle means growth in this Andean country could decelerate toward about 5 percent per year — still among the fastest in Latin America.” Although the analysts are encouraged by Lima’s plans to boost investment, they are concerned that uncertainty around the October regional elections could attenuate the benefits of that increased spending.