Countries: United Kingdom – First

Paul Huxford & team, J.P. Morgan Cazenove

The buy side says: “They make me aware of what’s going on behind the scenes.”

The crew at J.P. Morgan ­Cazenove, which spent last year in second place, returns to the summit. This year the squad is shepherded by newcomer Paul ­Huxford, 43. “They’ve got U.K. stocks well covered thanks to the history of ­Cazenove, which always had — and still has — an amazing franchise,” says one buy-side supporter. The analysts follow 300 U.K. companies, and among the ones they are urging clients to overweight is Standard ­Chartered, on the belief that the London-­based financial services firm has a strong balance sheet, good cost controls and profit strength thanks to its presence in such growing markets as China and Singapore. The team has dubbed London’s Rentokil ­Initial a “stock to avoid,” on the grounds that the U.K. economy, which accounts for 40 percent of the business-­services conglomerate’s revenues, is “deteriorating” and growth in other markets is tepid. Huxford, who holds a bachelor’s degree in economics and finance from New ­Zealand’s Victoria ­University of ­Wellington, worked at ­Macquarie Asia in that country before moving to J.P. Morgan in Sydney in 2007 to oversee ­Australian equity research; he relocated to London last year after being tapped to lead European equity research.