Evren Ergin, Venu Krishna & team Barclays Capital
The buy side says: "They steer investors over every hurdle."
Barclays Capital extends its winning streak to a fifth year. The ten-member team, co-led this year by Evren Ergin, 40, and Venu Krishna, 45, "does very strong antitrust and regulatory analysis," says one buy-side backer. One example: The strategists advised risk arbitrageurs to buy McAfee in December, at $46.85. They believed the market was overstating concerns about the European Union’s launching an in-depth antitrust review of Santa Clara, California–based chipmaker Intel Corp.’s acquisition of the computer-security software developer, which is headquartered in the same city; the $7.7 billion deal valued McAfee at $48 per share. The BarCap team was convinced that the EU would be satisfied with the results of a preliminary review and the deal would close as planned, in the first quarter. It did, allowing clients to lock in the equivalent of a 10 percent annualized return — double the median expected arbitrage return for BarCap’s merger universe.