Menno Sanderse & team Morgan Stanley
second team Damian Brewer & team J.P. Morgan
third team Mark McVicar & team Nomura
Morgan Stanley’s four-strong squad captained by Menno Sanderse, 36, climbs one rung to claim top honors for the first time since 2007. An upgrade from equal weight to overweight on TNT in September 2008, at €24.20, may have been too early, as the shares skidded to €10.57 in March on union opposition to the Dutch freight deliverer’s cost-cutting initiatives. But clients appreciated the advice — “Sticking with it through the rough times was one of the best calls of the year!” recalls one — as the stock began to rise, climbing back to €21.50 by December 31 and outpacing the sector by 6.5 percentage points. Vaulting from runner-up to No. 2 is the J.P. Morgan duo headed by Damian Brewer. The analysts issued a valuation-based upgrade from neutral to overweight on Britain’s FirstGroup in February 2009, at 295p, after the shares had plunged 33 percent in the preceding month because of declining bus travel. FirstGroup’s stock roared to 348p in August, and the team reduced it to neutral, on valuation, but the downgrade was premature. The stock continued to climb, ending the year at 426p. Mark McVicar steered Dresdner Kleinwort’s team to third place last year; he moved to Nomura in May and returns as leader of the No. 3 team. The Nomura trio told investors in May to buy France’s Groupe Eurotunnel, which runs railways beneath the English Channel, and Atlantia, an Italian toll-highway operator, on the belief that both stocks were bargains. Through December they shot up 73.9 and 29.2 percent, respectively.
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