Marcelo Telles & team Credit Suisse
The buy side says: “Marcelo is by far the most insightful analyst in his sector, and he isn’t afraid to take a stand.”
We divided Banking & Financial Services into two sectors, Financials/Banks and Financials/Nonbanks, and money managers say no team does a better job covering banks than the Credit Suisse threesome headed by São Paulo–based Marcelo Telles. (The team was a runner-up last year in the predecessor sector.) Telles, 36, joined the firm in 1998 immediately after earning a bachelor’s in business administration from São Paulo’s Fundação Getulio Vargas. In July 2011 he and his colleagues issued a counterconsensus downgrade of Brazil’s Itaú Unibanco Holding from outperform to neutral, at 31.19 reais, partly on profit pressures from weakening margins. The following week management reported that recurring net income in the second quarter was down 8.8 percent from the first three months of the year, missing consensus forecasts. Shares of the diversified financial services provider plunged to 24.80 reais before inching back to 29.15 reais by the middle of July — for a loss of 6.5 percent since the downgrade. During the same period the sector slipped 2.8 percent. In January the analysts cut Banco do Brasil from outperform to underperform, at 24.14 reais, predicting earnings disappointments and governmental inducements for the public bank to reduce spreads. The stock plummeted 22.1 percent, to 18.80 reais, and lagged the sector by 14.4 percentage points, through mid-July. — Ben Mattlin