< The 2014 All-Europe Research Team
Rising from runner-up to reclaim the third spot, which it most recently held in 2011, is the UBS team under the direction of Thomas Gilbert. The five researchers work out of London and Zurich, monitoring 30 companies with what one fund manager terms a “professorial understanding that gives our performance a decided advantage.” For the year ahead they continue to favor Germany’s Wacker Chemie, a manufacturer of specialty chemicals used in the biotechnology and semiconductors industries, among other high-technology fields. Gilbert’s crew upgraded the stock from neutral to buy in July, just ahead of the Chinese government’s decision to impose a special tariff on high-quality polysilicon imported from South Korea and the U.S. — and to not do likewise on that from European suppliers, as Beijing and Brussels continued a round of related trade negotiations. Wacker is the region’s largest producer of polycrystalline silicon, a major component in the manufacture of electronics and solar cells. By the end of December, the shares had jumped 31.3 percent, to €80.38. During the same period the sector advanced 7.9 percent. UBS’s team continues to forecast long-term earnings increases for the company. |