A refugee crisis following the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan could derail a bumper year for Turkey’s Coca Cola Icetek, according to its chief executive Burak Basarir.
Basarir is among the top-scoring chief executives in Institutional Investor’s Emerging EMEA Executive Team, as voted for by over 1,500 buy- and sell-side professionals. The recognition comes as Coca Cola Icetek is expanding in Central Asia after completing a two-year negotiation to acquire the majority stake in the Coca-Cola bottler in Uzbekistan. At the same time, Basarir has one eye on the movement of refugees around the region. “We are following closely the political instability in Afghanistan and the refugee movements across our key markets such as Pakistan and Turkey,” he said.
It’s the closing of borders — and access to markets — that keeps Grigory Vitalyevich Fedorishin from Russia’s largest steelmaker Novolipetsk Steel awake at night. “We are witnessing a surge in protectionism and a trend towards further market regionalization,” said Fedorishin, II’s top-scoring chief executive in the metals and mining sector. “Key global economies will continue to defend their positions and internal markets. This could translate into additional barriers, or into more complex trading conditions among countries.” Nonetheless, Fedorishin said, NLMK has been working to insulate its supply chains against unexpected disruptions for some time. “We were able to quickly adapt” when the pandemic hit, he said, noting that the firm entered alternative sales markets and earned the trust of new customers when traditional business stalled.
At TCS Group Holding, a banking group domiciled in Cyprus and operating in Russia as Tinkoff, Russia’s isolated position on the world stage means it is somewhat insulated from geopolitics, according to chief executive Oliver Hughes. Nonetheless, Hughes, who was the highest ranking chief executive in the financial sector, said Tinkoff is growing faster than the competition. Now the firm faces two challenges: how to scale up quickly while maintaining the quality of its service and where to find the tech talent that it needs to grow its platform. Both will depend on the stability of the market.
“Hopefully we will have an uneventful 2022,” he said.
To determine the members of Institutional Investor’s 2021 Emerging EMEA Executive Team, we surveyed buy-side analysts, money managers and sell-side researchers at securities firms and financial institutions that cover the region, including those who cast and received votes in this year’s Emerging EMEA Research Team survey. Survey results reflect the opinions from 437 investment professionals at 259 financial services firms.
We asked the participants to rate the chief executive officers, chief financial officers and investor relations professionals at the companies in their coverage universes. CEOs were rated on their credibility, leadership and communication. CFOs were rated on their ability in capital allocation, financial stewardship and communication. For the Investor Relations programs, companies were rated on the following attributes: productivity of NDR/road shows/conferences; earnings calls; business and market knowledge; responsiveness; authority and credibility; timing of financial disclosure; consistency of financial disclosure; and granularity of financial disclosure. Additionally, voters also rated each company on the quality of analyst/investor events and ESG metrics.
All votes are weighted by rating (five being excellent; one being average) and attributes within each category were aggregated to create the CEO, CFO, IR Professional, IR Program, ESG and Analyst/Investor Event rankings. The overall rankings in each of the categories are based on combined buy- and sell-side votes. Separate rosters (buy side, sell side) are also available for each award classification.
Honored Companies are companies who achieved at least one published position. To earn the designation of Most Honored Company, a company must achieve a weighted score of eight or more points across the six categories in the combined, buy-side and sell-side rankings, wherein each first-place position is worth three points; second place, two; and third place, one.
To be eligible for inclusion on the 2021 Emerging EMEA Executive Team, a company must be headquartered or have operational or executive headquarters in the region. We keep confidential the identities of the survey respondents to ensure their continuing cooperation. Voters must meet eligibility requirements, and winners must achieve a minimum vote count. All ballots are subject to review by our Research Operations Group.