David Lepper, Raj Sinha & team HSBC
second team Wael Ziada & team EFG-Hermes
third team Stephen Pettyfer & team BofA Merrill Lynch
HSBC Bank repeats at No. 1, this time under the leadership of David Lepper and Raj Sinha. The 15-person team, with offices in Cairo, Dubai and Riyadh, provides “strong, comprehensive coverage,” in the words of one investor. The analysts highlighted their buy recommendation on Saudi Basic Industries Corp. in January 2009, at 40.50 riyals, telling clients that the fertilizer and petrochemicals manufacturer’s earnings were at “trough levels,” yet its value was “below trough levels.” The stock had catapulted to 87 riyals by late January 2010, a gain of 114.8 percent that rocketed past the region’s broad market by 80.1 points.
Lepper, 41, holds a 1998 graduate degree from the Financial Services Institute of Australia and arrived at HSBC in 2008 from UBS in Hong Kong, where he headed pan-Asian small-caps research. Sinha, 36 years old and a chartered accountant, also joined HSBC in 2008; he earned a master’s degree in engineering and management at Cambridge University in 1995 and previously headed European telecoms research at J.P. Morgan.
Debuting in second place is the 16-analyst EFG-Hermes troupe conducted by Cairo-based Wael Ziada. Backers appreciate the longstanding buy on National Bank of Abu Dhabi, on the belief that the firm was undervalued given its strong fundamentals. For the 12 months through January 2010, the stock advanced 46.2 percent, from 7.66 dirhams to 11.20 dirhams.
Newcomer Stephen Pettyfer guides the BofA foursome to the No. 3 spot. The analysts, who are based in Dubai and London, upgraded Egyptian Financial Group–Hermes Holding Co. to buy, at 20.52 Egyptian pounds, citing the bank’s strong growth prospects. By late January the stock had rallied 49.4 percent, to 30.65 pounds.
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