Lucy Haskins & team, Barclays Capital

Lucy Haskins leads her London-based Barclays Capital foursome from runner-up to third place. Clients applaud a December 2010 downgrade of Austria’s OMV from equal weight to underweight, at €26.26, as the integrated oil producer was completing its takeover of Turkish fuel distributor Petrol Ofisi. The BarCap researchers argued that the deal (which was finalized later that month) would be dilutive — and they were right. By year-end 2011 the stock had fallen 10.7 percent, to €23.44, and trailed the sector by 19.1 percentage points. “The Barclays team has good recommendations,” maintains one backer.