Argentina

Under the direction of new team leader Ricardo Cavanagh, the four-strong Raymond James Latin America squad is No. 1 for the third time in four years.

Ricardo Cavanagh

Ricardo Cavanagh

Ricardo Cavanagh & team Raymond James second team Walter Chiarvesio & team Santander

third team Emerson Leite, Carola Sandy & team Credit Suisse

Under the direction of new team leader Ricardo Cavanagh, the four-strong Raymond James Latin America squad is No. 1 for the third time in four years. (The sector did not produce publishable results last year.) The Buenos Aires–based team has “the best access to management in Argentina,” marvels one backer. In December the analysts recommended the ADRs of Banco Macro, partly on its improved credit rating. Through July the ADRs soared 67.3 percent and outperformed the MSCI Argentina index by 34.8 percentage points, in dollar terms. Cavanagh, 41, is a 1992 graduate of Universidad Católica de Argentina with a master’s degree in economics. In 1996 he joined U.K.-based brokerage Caspian Securities, which was acquired by Raymond James two years later.

In second place for the third time in four years is Santander, whose two-analyst team is led this year by newcomer Walter Chiarvesio. In December the Buenos Aires–based pair told investors the global depositary receipts of Inversiones y Representaciones were a bargain at $3.41, owing to the developer’s plans to raise retail leasing rates. By late July the GDRs had advanced 70.1 percent, to $5.80.

Unranked since 2002, the Credit Suisse team, now three analysts steered by Carola Sandy in New York and São Paulo–based Emerson Leite (who also leads the No. 2 team in Oil, Gas & Petrochemicals and co-leads the No. 3 team in Brazil) takes third place. The researchers impressed investors by forecasting that the government would allow further depreciation of the Argentinean peso, already down 8.2 percent to the dollar year-to-date at the time of the March prediction, to support exporters, but that the rate of depreciation would slow. Through July the peso had slipped just 2.1 percent further.

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