Myles Allsop UBS
second team Mathias Carlson Deutsche
third team Lars Kjellberg Credit Suisse
Myles Allsop takes the top spot for a fourth consecutive year. The UBS analyst, who works solo, impressed clients with his coverage of Rexam, a London-based packaging-materials manufacturer. Allsop, 35, downgraded the stock to neutral in July, at 288.45p, on concerns of a possible credit downgrade to junk-bond status, then reversed himself a week later, after the stock had tumbled 20.3 percent, to 230p. In November, after it had jumped 25.7 percent, to 289p, he lowered it again to neutral, citing weak volumes and uncertainty stemming from the company’s announcement that CEO Leslie Van de Walle would take early retirement, starting in January. Through December the shares inched up to 290.60p. “Myles’s spot-on calls and out-of-the-box thinking make him the go-to person on the sector,” affirms one buy-side enthusiast. Deutsche’s Mathias Carlson, who also works solo, finishes in second place for a third year running. The Paris-based analyst “provides strong fundamental analysis and has great access to industry executives,” observes one fund manager. Carlson advised clients in January 2009 to sell their shares of Finnish paper maker Stora Enso, at €5.42, on soft demand. After the stock had fallen to €3.66, a loss of 32.5 percent that trailed the paper and forest products subsector by 11.1 percentage points, he upgraded it to neutral, on valuation. Since then it had lagged the subsector by just 2.3 points, through December. It’s three years in a row at No. 3 for Credit Suisse’s Lars Kjellberg. The solo analyst upgraded Irish container-board manufacturer Smurfit Kappa Group from neutral to outperform in December 2008, on valuation. By year-end 2009 the stock had bested the containers and packaging subsector by a phenomenal 310.7 points.
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