Jonathan Pierce, Guillaume Tiberghien & team Credit Suisse

The buy side says: “They are very original and unconsensual thinkers.”

Rising from second place to finish in first place for the first time is the eight-strong Credit Suisse squad helmed by Jonathan Pierce and Guillaume Tiberghien, who is based in Paris. The team, described by one buy-side loyalist as “the best collection of banking analysts in Europe,” upgraded Lloyds Banking Group from hold to buy in May, when the British firm’s share price dipped to 52p as fears of a spreading sovereign-­debt crisis rattled world markets. The stock recovered and by the end of the year had climbed 26.3 percent, to 65.70p. During the same period the sector gained just 4.9 percent. Pierce, 35, who is based in London, earned a master’s degree in mathematics at Cambridge University’s Jesus College in 1996 and worked as a banks analyst at HSBC James Capel before joining Credit Suisse in 2002; he will be leaving the industry later this year to focus on completing his postgraduate certificate of education at Oxford University. Tiberghien, who earned a bachelor’s degree in business and finance at École Supérieure des Sciences Commerciales d’Angers in Paris in 1995, worked as a banks analyst at Fox-Pitt Kelton and Deutsche Bank before moving to Credit Suisse in 2006; he left that firm in November and will join Exane BNP Paribas this month.