Who are the best corporate access providers in Europe? The answer depends on who you ask.
Investors and corporations have starkly different opinions on which sell-side firms do the best job of facilitating meetings and communication between the buy-side and Europe’s public companies. The two camps made their contrasting views known to Institutional Investor for the 2019 ranking of Europe’s Top Corporate Access Providers.
According to the buy-side — represented by 740 investors across 457 firms — this year’s top corporate access provider is JPMorgan Chase & Co. The bank rose up the ranks from fourth place last year, causing UBS and Bank of America Merrill Lynch to slide to second and third place, respectively.
[II Deep Dive: UBS Named Europe’s Top Corporate Access Provider]
None of these three investor favorites, however, earned podium spots from the 336 corporate respondents surveyed this year. Instead, European companies gave Paris-based Kepler Cheuvreux the crown for the second year running. Exane BNP Paribas ranked as the second-best firm, up from No. 5 last year, while Morgan Stanley placed third.
Even weighting the buy-side results by commissions — which gives the sell-side’s highest-paying clients more say — produced no consensus between investors and corporations on the top-three providers. BofA placed first in this commission-weighted ranking, followed by JPMorgan in second and UBS in third.
To compile the 2019 rankings, buy-side voters were asked to rate corporate access providers on four elements: one-on-one meetings, reverse road shows, conferences, and non-deal road shows.
Corporate respondents judged providers on five criteria: introductions to investors, site tours, investor conferences, non-deal road shows, and coordination of feedback between investors and corporations.
