Research | Rankings | Data | Insights
The research data independently captures evaluations of companies, brokers and executives from investment managers, broker firms and corporate issuers, to deliver detailed peer-to-peer comparative analyses every year; the feedback helps inform strategic decision making and improve resource and process management.
Research surveys are an independent platform for investment professionals to select the best-in-class of top sell-side research and provide valuable qualitative feedback on the provision, acquisition and consumption of research advisory services. The buy side’s assessment helps the sell side to optimise their service in a competitive market, manage their resources and ensure that they focus their efforts on the most profitable market segment.
Executive Team surveys are an independent platform for investment and sell-side professionals to evaluate credibility, communication, financial stewardship and capital allocation of corporate leadership, as well as IR effectiveness across multiple activities. The results from the survey, an in-depth perception and benchmark analysis (II Insights), capture the sentiment and trust level of stakeholders in their equity assets.
David Enticknap, Managing Director: david.enticknap@institutionalinvestor.com
Access Results Here: The All-Europe Research Team
Click here to read our 2021 Methodology
Click here to read our Trading & Execution Methodology
2020 Overview: When Covid-19 sent countries into lockdown, the main challenge for brokers was to stay connected — and flexible, according to Theepan Jothilingam, head of research at Exane BNP Paribas.
“We were well-shaped in the people we have, and we had great infrastructure,” he said. “The challenge was to retain the strong relationships in our team while working from home and maintain the exceptional relationships that we’ve had with investors and corporates.”
Five months into the global pandemic, the research head reports that has his team has more than risen to that challenge. “Our analysts have adapted and they have been flexible,” Jothilingam said.
It helps that Exane BNPP has “really invested in quality,” he added, describing his team as “one of the most experienced bench of sell-side analysts on the street in Europe.” This investment has been validated over the last few years, as the European bank dominated Extel’s rankings of the region’s top brokers.
Now, the Extel survey has been merged with Institutional Investor’s European rankings — and Exane BNPP has retained its position at the top of the pack, tying with for first place with UBS in the 2020 All-Europe Research Team.
David Enticknap, Managing Director: david.enticknap@institutionalinvestor.com
Access Results Here: The Emerging EMEA Research Team
Click here to read our 2021 Methodology
2020 Overview: Emerging market analysts are used to unpredictability. But 2020 has been something else entirely.
As Covid-19 began to spread around the world, forcing countries into lockdown and sending entire workforces home, top brokers observed a sudden increase in demand from investors for research, corporate access — for everything, according to Camille Asmar, HSBC’s head of emerging market equity sales for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.
“At the beginning, clients wanted access to everything and wanted to know everything,” he said. “We were here to support them and guide them throughout the pandemic and volatile markets.”
For investors in the developing markets of Eastern Europe, Russia, the Middle East, and South Africa, HSBC was particularly well suited to guide them, having long focused primarily on emerging markets. On the research team, for example, every analyst has more than 15 years of experience covering predominantly emerging markets, according to Raj Sinah, head of research for Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America.
“In emerging markets we are used to volatile moves and waves, so for us as a combined team — sales, research, and corporate access, which have worked together for over a decade — we were used to navigating situations such as this one,” Asmar said. “We were in a position stronger than anyone else to be there for our clients.”
The clients seem to agree: HSBC was among the top-performing firms in Institutional Investor’s Emerging EMEA survey, which asked investors to rate the region’s research purveyors, sales teams, and corporate access providers. The London-based bank was joined in the top rungs by global firms like JPMorgan Chase & Co., Bank of America Corp. and UBS Group.
Esther Weisz, Sales Director (Americas): eweisz@institutionalinvestor.com
Access Results Here: The Latin America Research Team
Click here to read our 2021 Methodology
2020 Overview: No matter which way you slice it, JPMorgan Chase & Co. is Latin America’s top research provider.
Investment professionals voted for JPMorgan as the region’s No. 1 research firm in Institutional Investor’s 28th annual Latin America Research Team survey. BTG Pactual slipped to second place in the 2020 ranking of research teams, while Bank of America Securities improved one position to clinch third.
More than 600 investment professionals at 400 asset management firms with major Latin American holdings participated in the survey, rating research providers across 23 industries, regions, and economic sectors. Each vote was weighted based on how much respondents spent on sell-side research.
This year’s survey produced three additional leaderboards, including two rankings weighted by voter assets under management. No matter how the results were calculated, however, JPMorgan took the top spot, followed by BTG Pactual in second and BofA Securities in third.
Access Results Here: The All-Brazil Research Team
Click here to read our 2021 Methodology
2020 Overview: JPMorgan Chase & Co is the No. 1 firm in Institutional Investor’s 2020 All-Brazil Research Team.
The 17th annual ranking of Brazil’s best equity research teams was determined by nearly 470 investment professionals across 316 asset management firms with significant Latin American holdings. Respondents rated research teams across 17 industry and economic sectors, with their votes weighted by how much they spent on sell-side research.
In this year’s commission-weighted ranking, JPMorgan just edged out last year’s incumbent BTG Pactual, earning 17 total team positions to the Brazilian bank’s 16.
Bradesco BBI tied with BTG Pactual for second, while Credit Suisse dropped one spot to fourth place. BofA Securities and UBS tied for fifth place with 7 positions each.
When votes were weighted based on assets under management instead of commissions, JPMorgan and BTG Pactual tied for first place, while Bradesco BBI took third.
Investors also voted for their favorite analysts to form two additional leaderboards based on individual researchers. In the commission-weighted ranking, BTG Pactual continued its reign, breaking last year’s two-way tie with Bradesco BBI to keep the No. 1 spot. Bradesco BBI and JPMorgan tied for second. These results did not change when votes were weighted by assets under management.
David Enticknap, Managing Director: david.enticknap@institutionalinvestor.com
Access Results Here: The All-Asia Research Team
Click here to read our Research Methodology
Click here to read our Trading & Execution Methodology
2020 Overview: Between trade tensions with the U.S. and protests in Hong Kong, last year was tumultuous for Asia. But all of that paled in comparison to the coronavirus that would sweep through the continent — and go on to infect the rest of the world.
“For those of us that are Hong Kong-based, the protests led pretty much straight into the pandemic,” said Martin Yule, head of research for Asia Pacific at UBS. “At times, Hong Kong felt like the eye of the storm. Rising geopolitical tensions were definitely the defining macro force at the end of 2019, but Covid pushed these concerns into the background pretty quickly.”
Six months since Covid-19 was first discovered in China, countries in the region are now loosening lockdown restrictions. And many Asian equity markets are rebounding, partly on the back of the large stimulus packages in the United States and Europe.
“The biggest surprise of 2020 thus far has been the speed of the market recovery,” said Yule, who succeeded UBS’s long-time Asia Pacific research head Damien Horth in February.
But the region is by no means out of the woods yet, Yule said. “The speed of the economic recovery is far from certain, and it would appear that epidemiologists seem to agree on one thing: a second wave is likely,” he continued. “That will test equity markets over the back half of 2020.”
Amidst this uncertainty, investors appear to be sticking with their tried and true research providers, based on II’s 27th annual All-Asia Research Team.
Access Results Here: The All-Japan Research Team
Click here to read our Research Methodology
Click here to read our 2021 Press Release in English
Click here to read our 2021 Press Release in Japanese
2021 Overview: 2020 had an inauspicious, if not unexpected, start for the world’s third-largest economy.
For the first time since 2015 — and as predicted by the country’s top research firms last year — Japan slipped into a recession during the first three months of 2020, ushered in by an increased consumption tax, natural disasters, and trade troubles with China.
But as the country moved from a “gentle recession” into a “technical recession” marked by two consecutive quarters of negative growth, the worst was yet to come as the novel coronavirus swept the globe and upended every aspect of life in Japan.
By the end of the summer, the economy had recorded its worst contraction on record of almost 8 percent, even as the country contained the Covid-19 pandemic better than its Western counterparts.
“The health impact of [Covid-19] for Japan [has been] mild so far,” said Takaaki Muramatsu, director of research at SMBC Nikko Securities. “It has forced companies to become more efficient and has given a big kick start to the digital transformation of almost every part of Japanese life. This process will be central to Japan’s new normal.”
To help them navigate this “new normal,” investors have once again turned to a cadre of Japanese-based research firms, based on the results of Institutional Investor’s 28th annual All-Japan Research Team.
Access Results Here: The All-China Research Team
Click here to read our Methodology
Click to view our Product Sales Aid in English or Chinese.
2020 Overview: It has been almost a year since the novel coronavirus was first detected in China, where it went on to trigger an acute health crisis and economic fallout that would soon go global.
But while most of world is still grappling with Covid-19, China is reporting little to no community spread and a market recovery. With the MSCI China Index up about 23 percent for the year and renewed investor interest in the Chinese A-share market, market observers are expressing cautious optimism.
“The past year saw a roller coaster ride for the global economy and to some extent [the] capital markets amid the Covid-19 pandemic,” said Eric Lin, head of research at UBS Securities Co., Ltd., the Chinese subsidiary of UBS. “China’s economy had suffered and recovered earlier than rest of the world, making it one of the few economies to grow GDP in 2020.”
Still, international and domestic clients remain focused on the pandemic, and whether China will continue to outpace rest of the world in terms of recovery, according to Lin.
Investors have turned to a top tier of domestic and international firms to help them answer that question, based on the results Institutional Investor’s eleventh annual All-China Research Team. While domestic firms still dominate, international firms have made significant inroads in 2020...
Esther Weisz, Sales Director (Americas): eweisz@institutionalinvestor.com
Access Results Here: The All-America Research Team
Click here to read our Methodology
2020 Overview: It’s March 12, 2020. The president has just banned travel from Europe. Stocks are in free fall. There’s a constant churn of breaking news alerts as something else shuts down: Broadway. Schools. Major League Baseball.
In makeshift home offices in New York and across the country, Wall Street’s analysts are scrambling to answer the question that every investor is asking: What happens next?
And in the middle of a crisis, new stars were born.
The 49th annual All-America Research Team celebrates the analysts and research providers that have risen to the challenges of the coronavirus pandemic. These are the experts investors turned to when entire industries shuttered overnight, even as companies themselves stopped trying to forecast their uncertain financial futures...
Access Results Here: The All-Canada Research Team
Click here to read our Methodology
2020 Overview: Nearly everything else in the world has changed — but the top research team in Canada hasn’t.
RBC Capital Markets has again topped Institutional Investor’s All-Canada Research Team in the second annual ranking of the country’s top equity research firms.
The results were decided by directors of research and heads of investment at institutions with major securities holdings in Canada, who rated the country’s top research providers across 16 market sectors. Their votes were weighted by commission spending to produce a top-10 leaderboard of Canadian equity research firms.
Despite a year of upheaval caused by the coronavirus pandemic, the top five results mirrored the inaugural 2019 ranking...
Ursula Kizy, Sales Director (Americas): ukizy@institutionalinvestor.com
Access Results Here: The All-America Executive Team
Click here to read our Methodology
2021 Overview: It’s been a bad year for the hospitality business. For the past eight months, hotels have suffered low revenues and high vacancies as the coronavirus pandemic eliminated business travel and halted most tourism. Many hotels shut down — temporarily or permanently. In New York City, some empty hotels were converted into medical staff housing or homeless shelters. Despite these challenges, one major hotel chain’s executives have managed to impress institutional investors through their handling of the Covid-19 crisis. Hilton Worldwide Holdings was among the best-performing companies in this year’s All-America Executive Team, with the Hilton c-suite scoring first place in the gaming and lodging sector. It’s a step up for Hilton, which last year ranked second overall in its sector, behind Marriott International. Other c-suites also prevailed through an immensely challenging year for their industries...Click here to continue reading.
Access Results Here: The All-Canada Executive Team
Click here to read our Methodology
2021 Overview: In a turbulent year dominated by an unprecedented health crisis, top-ranking chief executives across Canada have taken decisive action to protect their staff, support their customers, and — in the most hard-hit industries — keep their businesses alive.
“The dreams, plans, and hard work of so many have been undermined by the global pandemic,” said David McKay, CEO of the Royal Bank of Canada, who observed how devastating this past year has been for so many families and businesses: “The sudden loss of loved ones. The loss of jobs and small businesses. Missing out on the valuable experiences of a normal school year.”
When Covid-19 hit, McKay acted quickly, temporarily closing hundreds of RBC branches and enabling nearly 90 percent of employees — more than 75,000 across 36 countries — to work from home. The CEO was rewarded for his response to the pandemic by buy-side analysts, money managers, and sell-side researchers at securities firms and financial institutions, who ranked McKay first among chief executives in the financial institution sector in Institutional Investor’s sophomore All-Canada Executive Team.
Elsewhere, the sudden drop in customers as people retrenched indoors forced what Air Canada chief Calin Rovinescu described as “the most painful decision of my career”: laying off half of the airline’s workforce. “Given the disappearance of more than 90 percent of our business, we regrettably had to retrench and downsize,” he said.
In the face of great challenges, all of Institutional Investor’s top ranking CEOs embraced innovation...
Amani Korayeim, Sales Director (Europe & Emerging EMEA): amani.korayeim@institutionalinvestor.com
Access Results Here: Emerging EMEA Executive Team
2020 Overview: It’s been a tough year for executives across Europe, the Middle East, and Asia — especially for those in the healthcare sector.
“To be completely honest, throughout the past six months most decisions have been exceptionally challenging,” said Dr. Ahmed Ezzeldin Mahmoud Abdelaal, chief executive of Cleopatra Hospitals Group, which operates six hospitals in the Cairo area in Egypt. In May, Dr. Ezzeldin was at the helm when the group converted two of its facilities into Covid-19 treatment and isolation centers.
“The transition had to take place in a very short time frame and there was no room for error,” said Dr. Ezzeldin, who has been voted the No. 2 healthcare CEO in Institutional Investor’s 2020 Emerging EMEA Executive Team.
First place in the healthcare sector went to MLP Care chief executive Muharrem Usta, who leads Turkey’s largest healthcare provider. Usta said the safety of his staff was a top priority at MLP, which has 30 hospitals in 16 Turkish cities and has been involved in the treatment and diagnosis of patients with Covid-19, as well as public health messaging.
Both chief executives say the coronavirus has accelerated their companies’ digital transformations. Under the leadership of Dr. Ezzeldin, Cleopatra Hospitals has introduced new technologies to enhance back office and patient services. Patients can now take part in digital consultations using a proprietary app, as well as book home visits and diagnostic services – all without stepping foot in a clinic.
The digital transformation was already well underway in MLP hospitals when coronavirus hit, according to Usta. But the pandemic has expedited the testing of new services, especially remote access for patients who cannot go out due to lockdown. Now, MLP is looking forward to a new era of artificial intelligence in healthcare and aiming to launch a new AI center that, Usta said, will “take our clinical skills to a higher level.”
Amani Korayeim, Sales Director (Europe & Emerging EMEA): amani.korayeim@institutionalinvestor.com
Access Results Here: The All-Europe Executive Team
2020 Overivew:
Corporate leaders around the world have been forced to make tough decisions as they attempt to lead their companies through the global coronavirus pandemic. These are the European executives that most impressed investors during the early days of the crisis, according to Institutional Investor’s 2020 All-Europe Executive Team.
C-suites at Nestle, Unilever, and Allianz were among the top-ranking executives in the sixteenth annual survey, which asks investors and analysts to rate the region’s CEOs, CFOs, investor relations professionals, and IR programs. Executives at these three firms ranked first in their sectors in all four categories, while also earning top marks for their analyst days and environmental, social, and governance practices.
The food producer, consumer goods company, and insurer were among 12 companies that swept their sectors across the four main categories in this year’s ranking...Click here to continue reading.
Ursula Kizy, Sales Director (Americas): ukizy@institutionalinvestor.com
Access Results Here: The Latin America Executive Team
Click here to read our 2021 Methodology
2020 Overview: Angel Santodomingo Martell was expecting 2020 to be tough. He didn’t know it would be this tough.
Speaking to II, the bank executive recalled how Banco Santander Brasil, where he has served as chief financial officer since 2014, had began to position itself more conservatively last fall.
“Back in September last year, we publicly said that we saw pockets in the economy — we thought we should stay back a bit,” he said. “We wanted to control risk. Obviously, we didn’t know about Covid-19.”
As of Tuesday afternoon, there were more than 5.4 million documented cases of Covid-19 globally, according to the World Health Organization, including over 363,000 in Brazil. The Latin American country has in recent weeks emerged as one of the latest hot spots for the contagious and potentially fatal disease, with the number of reported cases growing rapidly over the month of May.
Across Latin America, executives from sectors ranging from financial services to construction report major disruptions to their businesses and an urgent need to adapt to a world that will likely be permanently altered by the coronavirus pandemic. In Mexico, for example, construction materials company CEMEX has instituted a number of new protocols to ensure proper social distancing and hygiene among workers, including launching an app for employees to self-report any health symptoms they may be experiencing.
Back in Brazil, electricity provider ENGIE Brasil Energia has had to figure out how to literally keep the lights on as the country’s largest electricity producers. “As a company that provides an essential service, we have implemented a series of initiatives to offer the necessary protection to our employees and the continuity of our activities, in line with the recommendations of health agencies,” Eduardo Sattamini, the utility company’s CEO, said by email.
Banco Santander has similarly sought to keep money flowing through the economy in a time when businesses and individuals need it most. “We have moved from ten years ago with banks being the problem to now banks being the solution,” Martell says. “And that is an important way of looking at the bank sector as what we should be, which is a provider for the economy to be able to grow.”
Click here to read about how Martell and other top-ranking members of II’s Latin America Executive Team have responded to the coronavirus pandemic — and what the world will look like afterwards.
Carvin Lee, Commerical Lead (Asia): carvin.lee@institutionalinvestor.com
Michael Clemons, Sales Director (Japan): michael.clemons@institutionalinvestor.com
Access Results Here: The All-Asia Executive Team
2020 Overview: The recent resurgence of coronavirus cases in Hong Kong has Asia’s top executives worried.
“We had a good Father’s Day celebration,” Ellis Cheng, chief financial officer of Kerry Logistics, told Institutional Investor from his headquarters in Hong Kong. “But now the cases are coming again. We’re not talking about a handful of cases but 70, 100 cases. Probably the Hong Kong government will apply some sort of restrictions again soon.”
Cheng is among the members of the 2020 All-Asia Executive Team, II’s latest annual ranking of the region’s best CEOs, CFOs, and investor relations professionals. Other top-ranked executives like Jason Lau — No. 1 CFO is the basic materials division — shared his concerns...
Access Results Here: The All-Japan Executive Team
2020 Overview: Eight companies dominated their industries in Institutional Investor’s eighth annual All-Japan Executive Team.
The 2020 ranking of the country’s best CEOs, CFOs, and investor relations professionals recognizes the top Japan-based companies across 24 industry sectors. Out of the 490 firms nominated for this year’s ranking, 61 scored highly enough to receive the designation of Most Honored Company.
Just eight swept their sectors, earning first place in each of the four categories: CEO, CFO, IR professional, and IR program.
A total of almost 350 money managers and research analysts from 189 securities firms and financial institutions voted to determine this year’s ranking.
Ursula Kizy, Sales Director (Americas): ukizy@institutionalinvestor.com
Access Results Here: America's Top Corporate Access Providers:
Amani Korayeim, Sales Director (Europe & Emerging EMEA): amani.korayeim@institutionalinvestor.com
Access Results Here: Emerging EMEA Top Corporate Access Providers
2020 Overview: Emerging market analysts are used to unpredictability. But 2020 has been something else entirely.
As Covid-19 began to spread around the world, forcing countries into lockdown and sending entire workforces home, top brokers observed a sudden increase in demand from investors for research, corporate access — for everything, according to Camille Asmar, HSBC’s head of emerging market equity sales for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.
“At the beginning, clients wanted access to everything and wanted to know everything,” he said. “We were here to support them and guide them throughout the pandemic and volatile markets.”
For investors in the developing markets of Eastern Europe, Russia, the Middle East, and South Africa, HSBC was particularly well suited to guide them, having long focused primarily on emerging markets. On the research team, for example, every analyst has more than 15 years of experience covering predominantly emerging markets, according to Raj Sinah, head of research for Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America.
“In emerging markets we are used to volatile moves and waves, so for us as a combined team — sales, research, and corporate access, which have worked together for over a decade — we were used to navigating situations such as this one,” Asmar said. “We were in a position stronger than anyone else to be there for our clients.”
The clients seem to agree: HSBC was among the top-performing firms in Institutional Investor’s Emerging EMEA survey, which asked investors to rate the region’s research purveyors, sales teams, and corporate access providers. The London-based bank was joined in the top rungs by global firms like JPMorgan Chase & Co., Bank of America Corp. and UBS Group.
Amani Korayeim, Sales Director (Europe & Emerging EMEA): amani.korayeim@institutionalinvestor.com
Access Results Here: Europe's Top Corporate Access Providers
2020 Overview: “When volatility and uncertainty are high, that’s when investors need a top-quality, experienced research team to navigate a landscape that’s been very dynamic almost day-to-day,” says Theepan Jothilingam, head of research at Exane BNP Paribas.
This includes a high-quality corporate access program.
“Clients wanted greater access to corporates so they could take a real-time pulse on what companies are seeing,” says Paul Reynolds, Exane BNPP’s head of advisory. “That in turn required corporate access teams to be very responsive not just in terms of getting a number of clients connected but also changing the business model in the sense that you’re offering a virtual service now.”
Investors seem to have appreciated Exane BNPP’s efforts: The bank came second this year’s ranking of Europe’s Top Corporate Access Providers, behind first-place provider Kepler Cheuvreux.
Access Results Here: UK Small & Midcap Corporate Access Providers
2020 Overview: Formerly known as Extel’s U.K. Small & Mid-cap Survey, the small- and mid-cap results are the first Extel rankings to be published under the Institutional Investor brand this year, following II’s acquisition of Extel in 2018. Instead of ranking the best overall brokers, as in previous Extel surveys, this new version highlights the top firms across three categories: research, sales, corporate access.
The ranking of U.K. Small & Mid-cap Corporate Access Providers was topped by Peel Hunt, with Investec coming in second and Numis taking third.
The survey, which included 293 portfolio managers and analysts across 203 firms, took place during the early weeks of the pandemic, with polling closing on April 17. This makes it one of the first to capture investor sentiment toward their corporate access providers during the height of 2020’s uncertainty.
“Corporate access has absolutely gone online,” said Andrew Peck, head of Investec’s listed client group. Despite this shift, Investec has seen “an enormous amount of contact between fund managers and analysts and companies.”
“More contact between the buy side and the sell side than I’ve ever known,” Peck added.
Carvin Lee, Commerical Lead (Asia): carvin.lee@institutionalinvestor.com
Michael Clemons, Sales Director (Japan): michael.clemons@institutionalinvestor.com
Access Results Here: Asia's Top Corporate Access Providers
2020 Overview: When Covid-19 sent China — and then the rest of Asia — into lockdown, JPMorgan Chase & Co. was one of the first to make the switch to virtual corporate access.
“I believe we probably held the first virtual event globally,” said Ryan Holsheimer, the bank’s Asia Pacific head of cash equities and equity distribution. “We had a conference in Shenzhen in February, right as things were starting to get cancelled and travel plans were thrown into disarray. We quickly moved the conference from physical to virtual, and we had 200 investors attend that virtually.”
Since then, everything has gone virtual — a new normal that Holsheimer and other corporate access leaders expect to last at least through the end of this year, if not longer. According to Holsheimer, JPMorgan has moved all of its conferences for the rest of the year online, while adding conference calls and other virtual meetings to meet a surge in demand from investors who are tuning in by the thousands.
This readiness to quickly adapt seems to be paying off, at least according to Institutional Investor’s 2020 ranking of Asia’s Top Corporate Access Providers.
Access Results Here: Japan's Top Corporate Access Providers
2020 Overview: Investors have chosen Nomura as the Japan’s top corporate access provider, rating the Japanese bank highly for its logistics and one-on-one meetings, among other attributes.
Daiwa Securities Group was ranked second by buy-side voters, followed by SMBC Nikko Securities in third.
Corporate respondents, however, chose Daiwa as 2020’s top access facilitator, based on investor introductions, site visits, conferences, non-deal roadshows, and feedback. Nomura came in second among corporations, while Mizuho Securities placed third.
About 142 investors and 52 corporate representatives voted to determine Institutional Investor’s 2020 ranking of Japan’s Top Corporate Access Providers.
Access Results Here: China's Top Corporate Access Providers
Ursula Kizy, Sales Director (Americas): ukizy@institutionalinvestor.com
Access Results Here: Latin America's Top Corporate Access Providers
2020 Overview: Latin American corporate access — like everything else touched by the coronavirus pandemic — has moved entirely online. But while the business of connecting investors and companies looks very different in 2020, the region’s top provider hasn’t changed.
BTG Pactual once again ranked first among money managers and corporate respondents in Institutional Investor’s 2020 ranking of Latin America’s Top Corporate Access Providers. Nearly 200 investors and 130 corporate representatives voted in this year’s survey to determine the firms that provide the best corporate access in Latin America.
Corporate voters showed a stronger preference for local firms...
Esther Weisz, Sales Director (Americas): eweisz@institutionalinvestor.com
Access Results Here: The All-America Sales Team
2020 Overview: It has been a year in which investors have needed the support of the sell side’s sales teams — and one firm has differentiated itself as the best in client service. Morgan Stanley has definitively risen to the top of Institutional Investor’s 2020 All-America Sales Team, which recognizes the firms with the best sales professionals. This year the bank repeated its first-place finish in specialist sales and claimed No. 1 in the generalist sales category, bumping JPMorgan Chase & Co. into second place. While much of last year was spent digesting regulation like the European Union’s updated markets in financial instruments directive — which unbundled research dollars from trading in January 2018, transforming client relationships — this year’s sales teams were focused on delivering the best possible service amid the global pandemic caused by the coronavirus...
Esther Weisz, Sales Director (Americas): eweisz@institutionalinvestor.com
Access Results Here: The Latin America Sales Team
2020 Overview: JPMorgan Chase & Co. has defended its crown in Latin America sales.
The global firm was named the No. 1 provider in Institutional Investor’s 2020 Latin America Sales Team, prevailing once again over a number of domestic firms.
In another repeat of last year, Brazilian bank BTG Pactual maintained its second place finish — but there is where the consistency ends in 2020’s commission-weighted leaderboard.
Credit Suisse rose two spots to take third, while Santander rocketed from tenth place to No. 4. BofA Securities rounded out the top five this year, after placing eighth in 2019.
When votes were weighted by respondent assets under management, the top two spots still went to JPMorgan and BTG Pactual, in that order. However, Santander and Credit Suisse switched positions, and Morgan Stanley claimed fifth place instead of BofA.
Access Results Here: The All-Brazil Sales Team
2020 Overview: BTG Pactual is once again No. 1 in Brazil sales.
After reclaiming the crown last year, the Brazilian bank has defended its title against global and domestic competitors in Institutional Investor’s 2020 All-Brazil Sales Team.
Local bank Bradesco BBI placed second in the annual ranking of generalist sales teams, while JPMorgan Chase & Co. dropped to third. Itaú BBA and Santander took fourth and fifth, respectively. The results were decided by some 240 buy-side money managers at more than 180 firms with major holdings in Latin America.
While the main leaderboard was weighted by how much voters spent on sell-side commissions, II also produced a set of results weighted by assets under management. BTG Pactual topped these as well, followed by Bradesco BBI in second, JPMorgan in third, and Santander in fourth. Itaú BBA rounded out the top five.
David Enticknap, Managing Director: david.enticknap@institutionalinvestor.com
Access Results Here: The Emerging EMEA Sales Team
2020 Overview: Emerging market analysts are used to unpredictability. But 2020 has been something else entirely.
As Covid-19 began to spread around the world, forcing countries into lockdown and sending entire workforces home, top brokers observed a sudden increase in demand from investors for research, corporate access — for everything, according to Camille Asmar, HSBC’s head of emerging market equity sales for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.
“At the beginning, clients wanted access to everything and wanted to know everything,” he said. “We were here to support them and guide them throughout the pandemic and volatile markets.”
For investors in the developing markets of Eastern Europe, Russia, the Middle East, and South Africa, HSBC was particularly well suited to guide them, having long focused primarily on emerging markets. On the research team, for example, every analyst has more than 15 years of experience covering predominantly emerging markets, according to Raj Sinah, head of research for Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America.
“In emerging markets we are used to volatile moves and waves, so for us as a combined team — sales, research, and corporate access, which have worked together for over a decade — we were used to navigating situations such as this one,” Asmar said. “We were in a position stronger than anyone else to be there for our clients.”
The clients seem to agree: HSBC was among the top-performing firms in Institutional Investor’s Emerging EMEA survey, which asked investors to rate the region’s research purveyors, sales teams, and corporate access providers. The London-based bank was joined in the top rungs by global firms like JPMorgan Chase & Co., Bank of America Corp. and UBS Group.
David Enticknap, Managing Director: david.enticknap@institutionalinvestor.com
Access Results Here: The All-Europe Sales Team
2020 Overview: “When volatility and uncertainty are high, that’s when investors need a top-quality, experienced research team to navigate a landscape that’s been very dynamic almost day-to-day,” says Theepan Jothilingam, head of research at Exane BNP Paribas.
A talented sales team also helps.
Sales teams are “incredibly important to clients in terms of filtering what’s important,” according to Paul Reynolds, Exane BNPP’s head of advisory.
“The time that clients have spent with sales teams is higher than any point in the last year,” he says.
Investors seem to have appreciated Exane BNPP’s efforts: The bank came first in the 2020 All-Europe Sales Team, followed by Kepler Cheuvreux in second place.
2020 Overview: Formerly known as Extel’s U.K. Small & Mid-cap Survey, the small- and mid-cap results are the first Extel rankings to be published under the Institutional Investor brand this year, following II’s acquisition of Extel in 2018. Instead of ranking the best overall brokers, as in previous Extel surveys, this new version highlights the top firms across three categories: research, sales, corporate access.
The U.K. Small & Mid-cap Sales Team was topped by Numis Securities, followed by Investec in second and Peel Hunt in third.
The survey, which included 293 portfolio managers and analysts across 203 firms, took place during the early weeks of the pandemic, with polling closing on April 17. This makes it one of the first to capture investor sentiment toward their brokers during the height of 2020’s uncertainty.
“The future is always uncertain — now more than usual,” said Will Wallis, head of research at Numis, by phone. “Analysts who know businesses well have been able to help institutional investors frame their thinking. While it doesn’t mean we have a crystal ball, if you have a deep understanding you are in a better position to make some judgment calls on what may or may not happen.”
David Enticknap, Managing Director: david.enticknap@institutionalinvestor.com
Access Results Here: The All-Asia Sales Team
2020 Overview: Amid unprecedented times, a new firm has taken the crown in Asia equity sales.
Some 1,200 money managers elevated UBS from last year’s second place finish to No. 1 in Institutional Investor’s 2020 All-Asia Sales Team, based on its sales coverage across 12 Asian countries. Respondents were asked to rate sales teams on six attributes, including their ability to add to value to research, generate ideas, and provide a global context. In a decisive performance, UBS ranked first in every attribute.
After 2019’s debut in the pole position, Citigroup was bumped to second, while JPMorgan Chase & Co. improved three spots to take third place. Morgan Stanley slid one spot to fourth, and BofA Securities moved up a rung to crack the top five.
The shakeup mirrors the upheaval experienced in most of Asia over the last year. While U.S.-China trade tensions dominated the markets in 2019, these were summarily replaced in early 2020 by the coronavirus pandemic that engulfed the region and then the globe.
Access Results Here: The All-Japan Sales Team
2020 Overview: For the third consecutive year, Nomura has topped Institutional Investor’s All-Japan Sales Team in a decisive ranking by buy-side money managers.
Daiwa Securities Group placed second, improving on 2019’s fourth place finish in the commission-weighted ranking. SMBC Nikko Securities and Mizuho Securities fell one spot each to place third and fourth, respectively. The highest rated international provider was JPMorgan Chase & Co., which rose from seventh place to crack the top five.
More than 380 investors from 227 firms were asked to consider six attributes when rating Japanese sales teams: understanding of client needs; idea generation; service and responsiveness; global context; value added to research; and market knowledge and feel. Their responses were then weighted based on how much their firms spend on commissions.
A separate ranking of equity sales teams, created by weighting survey responses by assets under management, produced an identical top five.
Access Results Here: The All-China Sales Team
David Enticknap, Managing Director: david.enticknap@institutionalinvestor.com
Access Results Here: The All-Europe Research Team
Click here to read our 2021 Methodology
Click here to read our Trading & Execution Methodology
2020 Overview: When Covid-19 sent countries into lockdown, the main challenge for brokers was to stay connected — and flexible, according to Theepan Jothilingam, head of research at Exane BNP Paribas.
“We were well-shaped in the people we have, and we had great infrastructure,” he said. “The challenge was to retain the strong relationships in our team while working from home and maintain the exceptional relationships that we’ve had with investors and corporates.”
Five months into the global pandemic, the research head reports that has his team has more than risen to that challenge. “Our analysts have adapted and they have been flexible,” Jothilingam said.
It helps that Exane BNPP has “really invested in quality,” he added, describing his team as “one of the most experienced bench of sell-side analysts on the street in Europe.” This investment has been validated over the last few years, as the European bank dominated Extel’s rankings of the region’s top brokers.
Now, the Extel survey has been merged with Institutional Investor’s European rankings — and Exane BNPP has retained its position at the top of the pack, tying with for first place with UBS in the 2020 All-Europe Research Team.
David Enticknap, Managing Director: david.enticknap@institutionalinvestor.com
Access Results Here: The Emerging EMEA Research Team
Click here to read our 2021 Methodology
2020 Overview: Emerging market analysts are used to unpredictability. But 2020 has been something else entirely.
As Covid-19 began to spread around the world, forcing countries into lockdown and sending entire workforces home, top brokers observed a sudden increase in demand from investors for research, corporate access — for everything, according to Camille Asmar, HSBC’s head of emerging market equity sales for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.
“At the beginning, clients wanted access to everything and wanted to know everything,” he said. “We were here to support them and guide them throughout the pandemic and volatile markets.”
For investors in the developing markets of Eastern Europe, Russia, the Middle East, and South Africa, HSBC was particularly well suited to guide them, having long focused primarily on emerging markets. On the research team, for example, every analyst has more than 15 years of experience covering predominantly emerging markets, according to Raj Sinah, head of research for Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America.
“In emerging markets we are used to volatile moves and waves, so for us as a combined team — sales, research, and corporate access, which have worked together for over a decade — we were used to navigating situations such as this one,” Asmar said. “We were in a position stronger than anyone else to be there for our clients.”
The clients seem to agree: HSBC was among the top-performing firms in Institutional Investor’s Emerging EMEA survey, which asked investors to rate the region’s research purveyors, sales teams, and corporate access providers. The London-based bank was joined in the top rungs by global firms like JPMorgan Chase & Co., Bank of America Corp. and UBS Group.
Esther Weisz, Sales Director (Americas): eweisz@institutionalinvestor.com
Access Results Here: The Latin America Research Team
Click here to read our 2021 Methodology
2020 Overview: No matter which way you slice it, JPMorgan Chase & Co. is Latin America’s top research provider.
Investment professionals voted for JPMorgan as the region’s No. 1 research firm in Institutional Investor’s 28th annual Latin America Research Team survey. BTG Pactual slipped to second place in the 2020 ranking of research teams, while Bank of America Securities improved one position to clinch third.
More than 600 investment professionals at 400 asset management firms with major Latin American holdings participated in the survey, rating research providers across 23 industries, regions, and economic sectors. Each vote was weighted based on how much respondents spent on sell-side research.
This year’s survey produced three additional leaderboards, including two rankings weighted by voter assets under management. No matter how the results were calculated, however, JPMorgan took the top spot, followed by BTG Pactual in second and BofA Securities in third.
Access Results Here: The All-Brazil Research Team
Click here to read our 2021 Methodology
2020 Overview: JPMorgan Chase & Co is the No. 1 firm in Institutional Investor’s 2020 All-Brazil Research Team.
The 17th annual ranking of Brazil’s best equity research teams was determined by nearly 470 investment professionals across 316 asset management firms with significant Latin American holdings. Respondents rated research teams across 17 industry and economic sectors, with their votes weighted by how much they spent on sell-side research.
In this year’s commission-weighted ranking, JPMorgan just edged out last year’s incumbent BTG Pactual, earning 17 total team positions to the Brazilian bank’s 16.
Bradesco BBI tied with BTG Pactual for second, while Credit Suisse dropped one spot to fourth place. BofA Securities and UBS tied for fifth place with 7 positions each.
When votes were weighted based on assets under management instead of commissions, JPMorgan and BTG Pactual tied for first place, while Bradesco BBI took third.
Investors also voted for their favorite analysts to form two additional leaderboards based on individual researchers. In the commission-weighted ranking, BTG Pactual continued its reign, breaking last year’s two-way tie with Bradesco BBI to keep the No. 1 spot. Bradesco BBI and JPMorgan tied for second. These results did not change when votes were weighted by assets under management.
David Enticknap, Managing Director: david.enticknap@institutionalinvestor.com
Access Results Here: The All-Asia Research Team
Click here to read our Research Methodology
Click here to read our Trading & Execution Methodology
2020 Overview: Between trade tensions with the U.S. and protests in Hong Kong, last year was tumultuous for Asia. But all of that paled in comparison to the coronavirus that would sweep through the continent — and go on to infect the rest of the world.
“For those of us that are Hong Kong-based, the protests led pretty much straight into the pandemic,” said Martin Yule, head of research for Asia Pacific at UBS. “At times, Hong Kong felt like the eye of the storm. Rising geopolitical tensions were definitely the defining macro force at the end of 2019, but Covid pushed these concerns into the background pretty quickly.”
Six months since Covid-19 was first discovered in China, countries in the region are now loosening lockdown restrictions. And many Asian equity markets are rebounding, partly on the back of the large stimulus packages in the United States and Europe.
“The biggest surprise of 2020 thus far has been the speed of the market recovery,” said Yule, who succeeded UBS’s long-time Asia Pacific research head Damien Horth in February.
But the region is by no means out of the woods yet, Yule said. “The speed of the economic recovery is far from certain, and it would appear that epidemiologists seem to agree on one thing: a second wave is likely,” he continued. “That will test equity markets over the back half of 2020.”
Amidst this uncertainty, investors appear to be sticking with their tried and true research providers, based on II’s 27th annual All-Asia Research Team.
Access Results Here: The All-Japan Research Team
Click here to read our Research Methodology
Click here to read our 2021 Press Release in English
Click here to read our 2021 Press Release in Japanese
2021 Overview: 2020 had an inauspicious, if not unexpected, start for the world’s third-largest economy.
For the first time since 2015 — and as predicted by the country’s top research firms last year — Japan slipped into a recession during the first three months of 2020, ushered in by an increased consumption tax, natural disasters, and trade troubles with China.
But as the country moved from a “gentle recession” into a “technical recession” marked by two consecutive quarters of negative growth, the worst was yet to come as the novel coronavirus swept the globe and upended every aspect of life in Japan.
By the end of the summer, the economy had recorded its worst contraction on record of almost 8 percent, even as the country contained the Covid-19 pandemic better than its Western counterparts.
“The health impact of [Covid-19] for Japan [has been] mild so far,” said Takaaki Muramatsu, director of research at SMBC Nikko Securities. “It has forced companies to become more efficient and has given a big kick start to the digital transformation of almost every part of Japanese life. This process will be central to Japan’s new normal.”
To help them navigate this “new normal,” investors have once again turned to a cadre of Japanese-based research firms, based on the results of Institutional Investor’s 28th annual All-Japan Research Team.
Access Results Here: The All-China Research Team
Click here to read our Methodology
Click to view our Product Sales Aid in English or Chinese.
2020 Overview: It has been almost a year since the novel coronavirus was first detected in China, where it went on to trigger an acute health crisis and economic fallout that would soon go global.
But while most of world is still grappling with Covid-19, China is reporting little to no community spread and a market recovery. With the MSCI China Index up about 23 percent for the year and renewed investor interest in the Chinese A-share market, market observers are expressing cautious optimism.
“The past year saw a roller coaster ride for the global economy and to some extent [the] capital markets amid the Covid-19 pandemic,” said Eric Lin, head of research at UBS Securities Co., Ltd., the Chinese subsidiary of UBS. “China’s economy had suffered and recovered earlier than rest of the world, making it one of the few economies to grow GDP in 2020.”
Still, international and domestic clients remain focused on the pandemic, and whether China will continue to outpace rest of the world in terms of recovery, according to Lin.
Investors have turned to a top tier of domestic and international firms to help them answer that question, based on the results Institutional Investor’s eleventh annual All-China Research Team. While domestic firms still dominate, international firms have made significant inroads in 2020...
Esther Weisz, Sales Director (Americas): eweisz@institutionalinvestor.com
Access Results Here: The All-America Research Team
Click here to read our Methodology
2020 Overview: It’s March 12, 2020. The president has just banned travel from Europe. Stocks are in free fall. There’s a constant churn of breaking news alerts as something else shuts down: Broadway. Schools. Major League Baseball.
In makeshift home offices in New York and across the country, Wall Street’s analysts are scrambling to answer the question that every investor is asking: What happens next?
And in the middle of a crisis, new stars were born.
The 49th annual All-America Research Team celebrates the analysts and research providers that have risen to the challenges of the coronavirus pandemic. These are the experts investors turned to when entire industries shuttered overnight, even as companies themselves stopped trying to forecast their uncertain financial futures...
Access Results Here: The All-Canada Research Team
Click here to read our Methodology
2020 Overview: Nearly everything else in the world has changed — but the top research team in Canada hasn’t.
RBC Capital Markets has again topped Institutional Investor’s All-Canada Research Team in the second annual ranking of the country’s top equity research firms.
The results were decided by directors of research and heads of investment at institutions with major securities holdings in Canada, who rated the country’s top research providers across 16 market sectors. Their votes were weighted by commission spending to produce a top-10 leaderboard of Canadian equity research firms.
Despite a year of upheaval caused by the coronavirus pandemic, the top five results mirrored the inaugural 2019 ranking...
Ursula Kizy, Sales Director (Americas): ukizy@institutionalinvestor.com
Access Results Here: The All-America Executive Team
Click here to read our Methodology
2021 Overview: It’s been a bad year for the hospitality business. For the past eight months, hotels have suffered low revenues and high vacancies as the coronavirus pandemic eliminated business travel and halted most tourism. Many hotels shut down — temporarily or permanently. In New York City, some empty hotels were converted into medical staff housing or homeless shelters. Despite these challenges, one major hotel chain’s executives have managed to impress institutional investors through their handling of the Covid-19 crisis. Hilton Worldwide Holdings was among the best-performing companies in this year’s All-America Executive Team, with the Hilton c-suite scoring first place in the gaming and lodging sector. It’s a step up for Hilton, which last year ranked second overall in its sector, behind Marriott International. Other c-suites also prevailed through an immensely challenging year for their industries...Click here to continue reading.
Access Results Here: The All-Canada Executive Team
Click here to read our Methodology
2021 Overview: In a turbulent year dominated by an unprecedented health crisis, top-ranking chief executives across Canada have taken decisive action to protect their staff, support their customers, and — in the most hard-hit industries — keep their businesses alive.
“The dreams, plans, and hard work of so many have been undermined by the global pandemic,” said David McKay, CEO of the Royal Bank of Canada, who observed how devastating this past year has been for so many families and businesses: “The sudden loss of loved ones. The loss of jobs and small businesses. Missing out on the valuable experiences of a normal school year.”
When Covid-19 hit, McKay acted quickly, temporarily closing hundreds of RBC branches and enabling nearly 90 percent of employees — more than 75,000 across 36 countries — to work from home. The CEO was rewarded for his response to the pandemic by buy-side analysts, money managers, and sell-side researchers at securities firms and financial institutions, who ranked McKay first among chief executives in the financial institution sector in Institutional Investor’s sophomore All-Canada Executive Team.
Elsewhere, the sudden drop in customers as people retrenched indoors forced what Air Canada chief Calin Rovinescu described as “the most painful decision of my career”: laying off half of the airline’s workforce. “Given the disappearance of more than 90 percent of our business, we regrettably had to retrench and downsize,” he said.
In the face of great challenges, all of Institutional Investor’s top ranking CEOs embraced innovation...
Amani Korayeim, Sales Director (Europe & Emerging EMEA): amani.korayeim@institutionalinvestor.com
Access Results Here: Emerging EMEA Executive Team
2020 Overview: It’s been a tough year for executives across Europe, the Middle East, and Asia — especially for those in the healthcare sector.
“To be completely honest, throughout the past six months most decisions have been exceptionally challenging,” said Dr. Ahmed Ezzeldin Mahmoud Abdelaal, chief executive of Cleopatra Hospitals Group, which operates six hospitals in the Cairo area in Egypt. In May, Dr. Ezzeldin was at the helm when the group converted two of its facilities into Covid-19 treatment and isolation centers.
“The transition had to take place in a very short time frame and there was no room for error,” said Dr. Ezzeldin, who has been voted the No. 2 healthcare CEO in Institutional Investor’s 2020 Emerging EMEA Executive Team.
First place in the healthcare sector went to MLP Care chief executive Muharrem Usta, who leads Turkey’s largest healthcare provider. Usta said the safety of his staff was a top priority at MLP, which has 30 hospitals in 16 Turkish cities and has been involved in the treatment and diagnosis of patients with Covid-19, as well as public health messaging.
Both chief executives say the coronavirus has accelerated their companies’ digital transformations. Under the leadership of Dr. Ezzeldin, Cleopatra Hospitals has introduced new technologies to enhance back office and patient services. Patients can now take part in digital consultations using a proprietary app, as well as book home visits and diagnostic services – all without stepping foot in a clinic.
The digital transformation was already well underway in MLP hospitals when coronavirus hit, according to Usta. But the pandemic has expedited the testing of new services, especially remote access for patients who cannot go out due to lockdown. Now, MLP is looking forward to a new era of artificial intelligence in healthcare and aiming to launch a new AI center that, Usta said, will “take our clinical skills to a higher level.”
Amani Korayeim, Sales Director (Europe & Emerging EMEA): amani.korayeim@institutionalinvestor.com
Access Results Here: The All-Europe Executive Team
2020 Overivew:
Corporate leaders around the world have been forced to make tough decisions as they attempt to lead their companies through the global coronavirus pandemic. These are the European executives that most impressed investors during the early days of the crisis, according to Institutional Investor’s 2020 All-Europe Executive Team.
C-suites at Nestle, Unilever, and Allianz were among the top-ranking executives in the sixteenth annual survey, which asks investors and analysts to rate the region’s CEOs, CFOs, investor relations professionals, and IR programs. Executives at these three firms ranked first in their sectors in all four categories, while also earning top marks for their analyst days and environmental, social, and governance practices.
The food producer, consumer goods company, and insurer were among 12 companies that swept their sectors across the four main categories in this year’s ranking...Click here to continue reading.
Ursula Kizy, Sales Director (Americas): ukizy@institutionalinvestor.com
Access Results Here: The Latin America Executive Team
Click here to read our 2021 Methodology
2020 Overview: Angel Santodomingo Martell was expecting 2020 to be tough. He didn’t know it would be this tough.
Speaking to II, the bank executive recalled how Banco Santander Brasil, where he has served as chief financial officer since 2014, had began to position itself more conservatively last fall.
“Back in September last year, we publicly said that we saw pockets in the economy — we thought we should stay back a bit,” he said. “We wanted to control risk. Obviously, we didn’t know about Covid-19.”
As of Tuesday afternoon, there were more than 5.4 million documented cases of Covid-19 globally, according to the World Health Organization, including over 363,000 in Brazil. The Latin American country has in recent weeks emerged as one of the latest hot spots for the contagious and potentially fatal disease, with the number of reported cases growing rapidly over the month of May.
Across Latin America, executives from sectors ranging from financial services to construction report major disruptions to their businesses and an urgent need to adapt to a world that will likely be permanently altered by the coronavirus pandemic. In Mexico, for example, construction materials company CEMEX has instituted a number of new protocols to ensure proper social distancing and hygiene among workers, including launching an app for employees to self-report any health symptoms they may be experiencing.
Back in Brazil, electricity provider ENGIE Brasil Energia has had to figure out how to literally keep the lights on as the country’s largest electricity producers. “As a company that provides an essential service, we have implemented a series of initiatives to offer the necessary protection to our employees and the continuity of our activities, in line with the recommendations of health agencies,” Eduardo Sattamini, the utility company’s CEO, said by email.
Banco Santander has similarly sought to keep money flowing through the economy in a time when businesses and individuals need it most. “We have moved from ten years ago with banks being the problem to now banks being the solution,” Martell says. “And that is an important way of looking at the bank sector as what we should be, which is a provider for the economy to be able to grow.”
Click here to read about how Martell and other top-ranking members of II’s Latin America Executive Team have responded to the coronavirus pandemic — and what the world will look like afterwards.
Carvin Lee, Commerical Lead (Asia): carvin.lee@institutionalinvestor.com
Michael Clemons, Sales Director (Japan): michael.clemons@institutionalinvestor.com
Access Results Here: The All-Asia Executive Team
2020 Overview: The recent resurgence of coronavirus cases in Hong Kong has Asia’s top executives worried.
“We had a good Father’s Day celebration,” Ellis Cheng, chief financial officer of Kerry Logistics, told Institutional Investor from his headquarters in Hong Kong. “But now the cases are coming again. We’re not talking about a handful of cases but 70, 100 cases. Probably the Hong Kong government will apply some sort of restrictions again soon.”
Cheng is among the members of the 2020 All-Asia Executive Team, II’s latest annual ranking of the region’s best CEOs, CFOs, and investor relations professionals. Other top-ranked executives like Jason Lau — No. 1 CFO is the basic materials division — shared his concerns...
Access Results Here: The All-Japan Executive Team
2020 Overview: Eight companies dominated their industries in Institutional Investor’s eighth annual All-Japan Executive Team.
The 2020 ranking of the country’s best CEOs, CFOs, and investor relations professionals recognizes the top Japan-based companies across 24 industry sectors. Out of the 490 firms nominated for this year’s ranking, 61 scored highly enough to receive the designation of Most Honored Company.
Just eight swept their sectors, earning first place in each of the four categories: CEO, CFO, IR professional, and IR program.
A total of almost 350 money managers and research analysts from 189 securities firms and financial institutions voted to determine this year’s ranking.
Ursula Kizy, Sales Director (Americas): ukizy@institutionalinvestor.com
Access Results Here: America's Top Corporate Access Providers:
Amani Korayeim, Sales Director (Europe & Emerging EMEA): amani.korayeim@institutionalinvestor.com
Access Results Here: Emerging EMEA Top Corporate Access Providers
2020 Overview: Emerging market analysts are used to unpredictability. But 2020 has been something else entirely.
As Covid-19 began to spread around the world, forcing countries into lockdown and sending entire workforces home, top brokers observed a sudden increase in demand from investors for research, corporate access — for everything, according to Camille Asmar, HSBC’s head of emerging market equity sales for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.
“At the beginning, clients wanted access to everything and wanted to know everything,” he said. “We were here to support them and guide them throughout the pandemic and volatile markets.”
For investors in the developing markets of Eastern Europe, Russia, the Middle East, and South Africa, HSBC was particularly well suited to guide them, having long focused primarily on emerging markets. On the research team, for example, every analyst has more than 15 years of experience covering predominantly emerging markets, according to Raj Sinah, head of research for Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America.
“In emerging markets we are used to volatile moves and waves, so for us as a combined team — sales, research, and corporate access, which have worked together for over a decade — we were used to navigating situations such as this one,” Asmar said. “We were in a position stronger than anyone else to be there for our clients.”
The clients seem to agree: HSBC was among the top-performing firms in Institutional Investor’s Emerging EMEA survey, which asked investors to rate the region’s research purveyors, sales teams, and corporate access providers. The London-based bank was joined in the top rungs by global firms like JPMorgan Chase & Co., Bank of America Corp. and UBS Group.
Amani Korayeim, Sales Director (Europe & Emerging EMEA): amani.korayeim@institutionalinvestor.com
Access Results Here: Europe's Top Corporate Access Providers
2020 Overview: “When volatility and uncertainty are high, that’s when investors need a top-quality, experienced research team to navigate a landscape that’s been very dynamic almost day-to-day,” says Theepan Jothilingam, head of research at Exane BNP Paribas.
This includes a high-quality corporate access program.
“Clients wanted greater access to corporates so they could take a real-time pulse on what companies are seeing,” says Paul Reynolds, Exane BNPP’s head of advisory. “That in turn required corporate access teams to be very responsive not just in terms of getting a number of clients connected but also changing the business model in the sense that you’re offering a virtual service now.”
Investors seem to have appreciated Exane BNPP’s efforts: The bank came second this year’s ranking of Europe’s Top Corporate Access Providers, behind first-place provider Kepler Cheuvreux.
Access Results Here: UK Small & Midcap Corporate Access Providers
2020 Overview: Formerly known as Extel’s U.K. Small & Mid-cap Survey, the small- and mid-cap results are the first Extel rankings to be published under the Institutional Investor brand this year, following II’s acquisition of Extel in 2018. Instead of ranking the best overall brokers, as in previous Extel surveys, this new version highlights the top firms across three categories: research, sales, corporate access.
The ranking of U.K. Small & Mid-cap Corporate Access Providers was topped by Peel Hunt, with Investec coming in second and Numis taking third.
The survey, which included 293 portfolio managers and analysts across 203 firms, took place during the early weeks of the pandemic, with polling closing on April 17. This makes it one of the first to capture investor sentiment toward their corporate access providers during the height of 2020’s uncertainty.
“Corporate access has absolutely gone online,” said Andrew Peck, head of Investec’s listed client group. Despite this shift, Investec has seen “an enormous amount of contact between fund managers and analysts and companies.”
“More contact between the buy side and the sell side than I’ve ever known,” Peck added.
Carvin Lee, Commerical Lead (Asia): carvin.lee@institutionalinvestor.com
Michael Clemons, Sales Director (Japan): michael.clemons@institutionalinvestor.com
Access Results Here: Asia's Top Corporate Access Providers
2020 Overview: When Covid-19 sent China — and then the rest of Asia — into lockdown, JPMorgan Chase & Co. was one of the first to make the switch to virtual corporate access.
“I believe we probably held the first virtual event globally,” said Ryan Holsheimer, the bank’s Asia Pacific head of cash equities and equity distribution. “We had a conference in Shenzhen in February, right as things were starting to get cancelled and travel plans were thrown into disarray. We quickly moved the conference from physical to virtual, and we had 200 investors attend that virtually.”
Since then, everything has gone virtual — a new normal that Holsheimer and other corporate access leaders expect to last at least through the end of this year, if not longer. According to Holsheimer, JPMorgan has moved all of its conferences for the rest of the year online, while adding conference calls and other virtual meetings to meet a surge in demand from investors who are tuning in by the thousands.
This readiness to quickly adapt seems to be paying off, at least according to Institutional Investor’s 2020 ranking of Asia’s Top Corporate Access Providers.
Access Results Here: Japan's Top Corporate Access Providers
2020 Overview: Investors have chosen Nomura as the Japan’s top corporate access provider, rating the Japanese bank highly for its logistics and one-on-one meetings, among other attributes.
Daiwa Securities Group was ranked second by buy-side voters, followed by SMBC Nikko Securities in third.
Corporate respondents, however, chose Daiwa as 2020’s top access facilitator, based on investor introductions, site visits, conferences, non-deal roadshows, and feedback. Nomura came in second among corporations, while Mizuho Securities placed third.
About 142 investors and 52 corporate representatives voted to determine Institutional Investor’s 2020 ranking of Japan’s Top Corporate Access Providers.
Access Results Here: China's Top Corporate Access Providers
Ursula Kizy, Sales Director (Americas): ukizy@institutionalinvestor.com
Access Results Here: Latin America's Top Corporate Access Providers
2020 Overview: Latin American corporate access — like everything else touched by the coronavirus pandemic — has moved entirely online. But while the business of connecting investors and companies looks very different in 2020, the region’s top provider hasn’t changed.
BTG Pactual once again ranked first among money managers and corporate respondents in Institutional Investor’s 2020 ranking of Latin America’s Top Corporate Access Providers. Nearly 200 investors and 130 corporate representatives voted in this year’s survey to determine the firms that provide the best corporate access in Latin America.
Corporate voters showed a stronger preference for local firms...
Esther Weisz, Sales Director (Americas): eweisz@institutionalinvestor.com
Access Results Here: The All-America Sales Team
2020 Overview: It has been a year in which investors have needed the support of the sell side’s sales teams — and one firm has differentiated itself as the best in client service. Morgan Stanley has definitively risen to the top of Institutional Investor’s 2020 All-America Sales Team, which recognizes the firms with the best sales professionals. This year the bank repeated its first-place finish in specialist sales and claimed No. 1 in the generalist sales category, bumping JPMorgan Chase & Co. into second place. While much of last year was spent digesting regulation like the European Union’s updated markets in financial instruments directive — which unbundled research dollars from trading in January 2018, transforming client relationships — this year’s sales teams were focused on delivering the best possible service amid the global pandemic caused by the coronavirus...
Esther Weisz, Sales Director (Americas): eweisz@institutionalinvestor.com
Access Results Here: The Latin America Sales Team
2020 Overview: JPMorgan Chase & Co. has defended its crown in Latin America sales.
The global firm was named the No. 1 provider in Institutional Investor’s 2020 Latin America Sales Team, prevailing once again over a number of domestic firms.
In another repeat of last year, Brazilian bank BTG Pactual maintained its second place finish — but there is where the consistency ends in 2020’s commission-weighted leaderboard.
Credit Suisse rose two spots to take third, while Santander rocketed from tenth place to No. 4. BofA Securities rounded out the top five this year, after placing eighth in 2019.
When votes were weighted by respondent assets under management, the top two spots still went to JPMorgan and BTG Pactual, in that order. However, Santander and Credit Suisse switched positions, and Morgan Stanley claimed fifth place instead of BofA.
Access Results Here: The All-Brazil Sales Team
2020 Overview: BTG Pactual is once again No. 1 in Brazil sales.
After reclaiming the crown last year, the Brazilian bank has defended its title against global and domestic competitors in Institutional Investor’s 2020 All-Brazil Sales Team.
Local bank Bradesco BBI placed second in the annual ranking of generalist sales teams, while JPMorgan Chase & Co. dropped to third. Itaú BBA and Santander took fourth and fifth, respectively. The results were decided by some 240 buy-side money managers at more than 180 firms with major holdings in Latin America.
While the main leaderboard was weighted by how much voters spent on sell-side commissions, II also produced a set of results weighted by assets under management. BTG Pactual topped these as well, followed by Bradesco BBI in second, JPMorgan in third, and Santander in fourth. Itaú BBA rounded out the top five.
David Enticknap, Managing Director: david.enticknap@institutionalinvestor.com
Access Results Here: The Emerging EMEA Sales Team
2020 Overview: Emerging market analysts are used to unpredictability. But 2020 has been something else entirely.
As Covid-19 began to spread around the world, forcing countries into lockdown and sending entire workforces home, top brokers observed a sudden increase in demand from investors for research, corporate access — for everything, according to Camille Asmar, HSBC’s head of emerging market equity sales for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.
“At the beginning, clients wanted access to everything and wanted to know everything,” he said. “We were here to support them and guide them throughout the pandemic and volatile markets.”
For investors in the developing markets of Eastern Europe, Russia, the Middle East, and South Africa, HSBC was particularly well suited to guide them, having long focused primarily on emerging markets. On the research team, for example, every analyst has more than 15 years of experience covering predominantly emerging markets, according to Raj Sinah, head of research for Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America.
“In emerging markets we are used to volatile moves and waves, so for us as a combined team — sales, research, and corporate access, which have worked together for over a decade — we were used to navigating situations such as this one,” Asmar said. “We were in a position stronger than anyone else to be there for our clients.”
The clients seem to agree: HSBC was among the top-performing firms in Institutional Investor’s Emerging EMEA survey, which asked investors to rate the region’s research purveyors, sales teams, and corporate access providers. The London-based bank was joined in the top rungs by global firms like JPMorgan Chase & Co., Bank of America Corp. and UBS Group.
David Enticknap, Managing Director: david.enticknap@institutionalinvestor.com
Access Results Here: The All-Europe Sales Team
2020 Overview: “When volatility and uncertainty are high, that’s when investors need a top-quality, experienced research team to navigate a landscape that’s been very dynamic almost day-to-day,” says Theepan Jothilingam, head of research at Exane BNP Paribas.
A talented sales team also helps.
Sales teams are “incredibly important to clients in terms of filtering what’s important,” according to Paul Reynolds, Exane BNPP’s head of advisory.
“The time that clients have spent with sales teams is higher than any point in the last year,” he says.
Investors seem to have appreciated Exane BNPP’s efforts: The bank came first in the 2020 All-Europe Sales Team, followed by Kepler Cheuvreux in second place.
2020 Overview: Formerly known as Extel’s U.K. Small & Mid-cap Survey, the small- and mid-cap results are the first Extel rankings to be published under the Institutional Investor brand this year, following II’s acquisition of Extel in 2018. Instead of ranking the best overall brokers, as in previous Extel surveys, this new version highlights the top firms across three categories: research, sales, corporate access.
The U.K. Small & Mid-cap Sales Team was topped by Numis Securities, followed by Investec in second and Peel Hunt in third.
The survey, which included 293 portfolio managers and analysts across 203 firms, took place during the early weeks of the pandemic, with polling closing on April 17. This makes it one of the first to capture investor sentiment toward their brokers during the height of 2020’s uncertainty.
“The future is always uncertain — now more than usual,” said Will Wallis, head of research at Numis, by phone. “Analysts who know businesses well have been able to help institutional investors frame their thinking. While it doesn’t mean we have a crystal ball, if you have a deep understanding you are in a better position to make some judgment calls on what may or may not happen.”
David Enticknap, Managing Director: david.enticknap@institutionalinvestor.com
Access Results Here: The All-Asia Sales Team
2020 Overview: Amid unprecedented times, a new firm has taken the crown in Asia equity sales.
Some 1,200 money managers elevated UBS from last year’s second place finish to No. 1 in Institutional Investor’s 2020 All-Asia Sales Team, based on its sales coverage across 12 Asian countries. Respondents were asked to rate sales teams on six attributes, including their ability to add to value to research, generate ideas, and provide a global context. In a decisive performance, UBS ranked first in every attribute.
After 2019’s debut in the pole position, Citigroup was bumped to second, while JPMorgan Chase & Co. improved three spots to take third place. Morgan Stanley slid one spot to fourth, and BofA Securities moved up a rung to crack the top five.
The shakeup mirrors the upheaval experienced in most of Asia over the last year. While U.S.-China trade tensions dominated the markets in 2019, these were summarily replaced in early 2020 by the coronavirus pandemic that engulfed the region and then the globe.
Access Results Here: The All-Japan Sales Team
2020 Overview: For the third consecutive year, Nomura has topped Institutional Investor’s All-Japan Sales Team in a decisive ranking by buy-side money managers.
Daiwa Securities Group placed second, improving on 2019’s fourth place finish in the commission-weighted ranking. SMBC Nikko Securities and Mizuho Securities fell one spot each to place third and fourth, respectively. The highest rated international provider was JPMorgan Chase & Co., which rose from seventh place to crack the top five.
More than 380 investors from 227 firms were asked to consider six attributes when rating Japanese sales teams: understanding of client needs; idea generation; service and responsiveness; global context; value added to research; and market knowledge and feel. Their responses were then weighted based on how much their firms spend on commissions.
A separate ranking of equity sales teams, created by weighting survey responses by assets under management, produced an identical top five.
Access Results Here: The All-China Sales Team
Once you have selected the product and region of interest, you have the option to subscribe to or purchase the full research and analysis.
As a subscriber, you have access to the Top Ranked or Top Line results of Institutional Investor's research and rankings, including analyst details, as well as premium research and journalism.
II Research provides impactful consulting services with a deeper dive into the full data set, providing access to the voter universe, competitor analysis as well as peer group benchmarking.
Our latest product, the II Insights Dashboard, delivers a unique, customised access to thousands of data points from across our proprietary research portfolio. Easy to navigate, the platform is a strategic decision-making tool allowing clients to identify opportunities and mitigate risk by regularly monitoring their relative market perception and performing a capability gap analysis. The analysis is based on actionable and comparative data analytics across global markets.
The independent nature of the data, delivering authentic and relevant competitor insights, provides a unique perspective on market position and allows every analyst or IR team to understand their value against a peer group. The granular data will position clients competitively, informing better strategic decisions and enabling more effective resource allocation.
Institutional Investor owns the copyright to all survey and award logos. To share your rankings on your website content, advertisements, communications and/or any marketing collateral, please contact marketing@iiresearch.com.
"Institutional Investor’s independent IR Perception and Benchmark analysis, derived from the annual All-Europe Executive Team survey, allows us to objectively assess our IR activities relative to our peers – in and outside our sector and region. Understanding best in class and benchmarking ourselves has been a great value in raising the bar and becoming better. The detailed analysis and consultation with the II team allowed us to identify action-specific take outs that help inform our IR outreach to be more targeted when engaging with specific investor groups – by region or size." Head of IR, GN Store Nord
"The II survey is the most honest, independent way of assessing our Company’s relationship with the market. It is a key metric for us, even for internal purposes, as it is considered the fairest way of evaluating our annual performance. Iberdrola has historically been top ranked at the survey. The report produced alongside with such survey is the perfect complement since it allows us to identify those areas and countries where results have been weaker and, therefore, subject to improvement. It is impossible to thrive from the self-complacency." IR Team, Iberdrola
“The feedback we receive from the I.I. poll is valuable to us as it represents the views of our institutional clients and crystalizes their assessment of our thought leadership as a firm overall and in individual sectors.”
Nick Rosato, Head of North American Research, J.P. Morgan
“II Research is a unique industry benchmark which is a critical tool for our business. With high investor participation, good quality data and a comprehensive results package, II Research is a tool we rely on 12 months a year."
Aurelie Moyse, Head of Research Client Strategy, Exane BNP Paribas
Institutional Investor’s 2020 Europe & Emerging EMEA Survey results for Investor Relations Awards - Turkey 2020, were announced on September 10th.
Hosted by Turkish Investor Relations Society (TUYID), the online award ceremony started with an opening speech by TUYID Chairperson Asli Selcuk. Amani Korayeim, Institutional Investment EMEA Sales and Product Development Director, then presented the methodology of the research in detail. The ceremony ended after the winners were announced.
Click here to watch the award ceremony.
This year, IR changed. At the Middle East Investor Relations Association (MEIRA), they went virtual delivering almost everything they offer online. Their annual conference theme, ‘Driving stakeholder value’, has never been more at a premium but how do you deliver?
As the region’s independent non-profit professional body for IR, curating relevant timely content and thought leadership are at the heart of what MEIRA does with and for its IR community. An important part of this process is to subject its listed companies to the views of the investment community, the IR target audience. To do this successfully every year, MEIRA is proud to partner with Institutional Investor, the leader in the field of capital market intelligence. MEIRA prides itself on advocating best practice as it plays its part in promoting regional market development.
As John Gollifer, General Manager, MEIRA, reflects on their recent record of over 300 registrations: "When MEIRA hosted its first-ever virtual annual conference and awards on 22-23 September 2020, we knew that the challenge would be living up to our theme of 'Driving stakeholder value', something we truly believe in and champion at every opportunity. How do you ensure you successfully garner support from a captive, yet rightly expectant, audience in an endless stream of online content?
We focused on live discussion, which allowed greater engagement and a healthy nervous energy, notably in the form of the all-important keynotes that drew on thought leadership from: the C-suite - a new CFO in the region; Dr Mobius, the iconic investor of our EM asset class; and renowned 'warts-and-all' perspectives from the best international commentator we could find, all contributing to tell us how it really is in the world today. In addition, while offering much choice to our audience over a 24-hour cycle of different conference segments, including sector plenary discussions, why not introduce some local talent and celebrate our region for what it is and share live entertainment with our audience?"
As companies navigate through these incredibly turbulent and uncertain times, the IR Society’s 34th annual conference, Embracing Change: A New Age of IR, celebrated the pivotal and increasingly strategic role that IR plays within organisations and how it is being influenced by the current crisis.
Alongside four pre-recorded keynote addresses, the four live sessions addressed the topics of key themes and mega trends, ESG and stewardship as we emerge from the crisis, the changing shape of capital markets and how to shape your IR programme in a post-COVID world.
The conference platform allowed conference delegates to browse the pre-recorded content, participate in the live panel sessions, network with peers and visit our exhibitors in the virtual exhibition hall.
Laura Hayter, CEO of the IR Society, commenting on the event said: “While this year the conference format might have been a little different, the feedback has shown that the programme and speakers were of the very highest quality and we’re absolutely delighted with the overall response to our first ever virtual annual conference. As a member-led, not-for-profit organisation, we’d like to say a big thank you to all our members and sponsors for their ongoing support, as without this we would not be able to do everything we do to promote excellence in IR and support the IR community, including being able to run our flagship Annual Conference.”
This year marks the 15th Anniversary of the partnership between DIRK – Deutsche Investor Relations Verband - and Institutional Investor (previously Extel). On 2nd October, DIRK relocated their autumn general meeting from Hanover to the virtual room. With more than 300 participants the program resonated very well with its audience. The questions submitted and the subsequent discussions showed once again that the topics are relevant and current for investor relations:
For more information, please visit the DIRK website: https://www.dirk.org/
The German Investor Relations Prize 2020, based on Institutional Investor’s Europe Executive Team Survey, was awarded for the 20th time this year, recognizing exceptional investor relations work in Germany every year.
Due to the Covid-19 situation, the traditional award ceremony, which is usually given during the annual DIRK conference, could not take place. A short video was presented during the general meeting that brings the lucky winners together on stage, albeit only virtually! Click here to view the video.
The Romanian Investor Relations Association (ARIR) in collaboration with Institutional Investor –recognised the best performance in Investor Relations (IR), for the second time in Romania during AR & IR Gala.
The representatives of Fondul Proprietatea & OMV Petrom garnered the highest votes by institutional investors worldwide.
Companies such as Banca Transilvania, Electrica, MedLife, Nuclearelectrica, Sphera Franchise Group, Transelectrica have also achieved good results with positive feedback from the institutional investors community.
ALRO was voted as the Best Company by retail investors, the activity of TeraPlast and Antibiotice being also very appreciated.
Listed companies’ sustainability reports were evaluated for the first time by an independent jury – OMV Petrom report won the prize for “Best Sustainability Report”. ALRO & Electrica reports were also remarked as best in the market
On 16th of November 2020, Institutional Investor Research was delighted to partner with the Moscow Exchange for the second time to award and recognise Russian listed companies for their IR Excellence. Where companies are under pressure to raise their governance standards, we were excited to recognise, for the first time this year, Russian companies that have demonstrated good ESG integration based on the views of hundreds of investment professionals. Alongside to the ESG award, the Best CFO and IRO as well as the best IR Programmes across the Small, Mid- and Large Cap category were taken to the virtual stage to receive their awards.
On 24th of November 2020, Institutional Investor partnered with IR Society to run this year's Best Practice Awards presented across four categories in the self-entry section, with the winners determined by a judging panel of experienced professionals, and four categories in the voted section.
Laura Hayter, CEO of the IR Society, said:“The development and promotion of best practice in investor relations is at the heart of the IR Society, and our annual Best Practice Awards, now in their 20th year, are fundamental to this work. The global pandemic combined with ongoing changes in the regulatory environment and greater demands from investors have challenged IR teams to continue to push the boundaries in best practice IR and to ensure their company’s reason for existence and investment case are clearly articulated. Each year we are delighted by the standard of entries, with this one being no exception. Many congratulations to all our winners, who demonstrated best in class investor relations in their respective categories.”
Paul Lee, Chair of the Judging Panel, said: “Fundamentally, investors want honesty in corporate reporting, and in this very difficult year, more than ever that's what people will want, will respect and will be looking for. Companies should be entering these awards. If you're not already proud of your reporting, improve it so you are. If you are already proud of your reporting, then of course, you should be entering.”
David is the Managing Director and Head of II Research, joining Institutional Investor in March 2018 through the acquisition of Extel, where he had been in charge since August 2016. Initially tasked with the integration of the II (Europe) Research and Extel surveys, David also headed European sales and was responsible for developing the II Research premium products and services. A former military helicopter pilot, David started his career in finance with five years in Equity Operations for NatWest Markets and UBS in London & Hong Kong. In 2003, he moved to CLSA, culminating in his role as Global Head of Client Management. A relocation to Europe followed in 2012, and he joined MainFirst AG as Head of Client Strategy in April 2014. David is married with three children and enjoys tennis, sailing, golf and cooking.
Esther is the Director of Sell-Side Sales for Institutional Investor Research. In this role she is responsible for selling research on Institutional Investor’s sell side rankings and managing relationships with Research and Sales Directors at leading financial service firms globally. Previous to this position Esther held several roles in the group such as Director of Client Relations and Senior Research Associate.
Esther studied at Concordia University in Montreal for a finance degree.
Dennys Gil is the Head of Subscription Sales at Institutional Investor Research. She joined Institutional Investor in November 2017 as a Sales Executive coming from a prior sales position. Originally from Dominican Republic, she moved to NYC in 2012 to purse her bachelor’s degree in Economics from Zicklin School of Business at CUNY Baruch College.
Amani Korayeim is the All-EMEA Director for Sales and Product Development of lnstitutional lnvestor Research. She oversees key client relationships, strategic partnerships and the launch of new research products as well as the expansion into new markets. She works closely with IR and executive management teams, running capability assessment workshops to help inform and drive IR outreach strategies.
Before joining lnstitutional lnvestor, Amani worked in the business information sector providing research based advisory services to professional services companies on global mandates. She has spent the last 8 years in the IR space and speaks regularly at IR society events focused on global trends in IR, outreach optimisation and the impact of new regulations. Amani obtained the Certificate of Investor Relations (CIR) from the UKIRS and graduated from the University of London with a BSc in Economics & Politics.
Ursula Kizy is the Director of Product Development and Sales for Institutional Investor Research, providing independent market analyses for corporate clients in the Americas. Ursula began at Institutional Investor guiding quality control for sell-side equity and fixed-income research analyses, before concentrating on corporate research. Ursula’s work is primarily focused on bringing the latest capital markets insights to the investor relations community to help curate effective IR communications and strategize outreach to key members of the investment community.
Michael Clemons, an American residing in Tokyo, has over 27 years of finance/investment banking experience in Asia, having worked in Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, and Japan. Having held various Chief Operating Officer roles over the years in both the financial sector as well as philanthropy institutions, Michael has broad experience in Equities, Human Resources, Strategy, Governance, Audit as well as Information Technology.
Disclaimer: All posts are the views of myself and not Institutional Investor.
Having lived and worked in Japan over the last 27 years, Michael has dedicated the last 13 years working in philanthropy groups, the current role being a middle person between Investors and NPOs and Social Enterprises in relation to their funding requirements. Prior to this, Michael worked with Nomura International (Hong Kong), Barclays Capital (Japan), CLSA Credit Lyonnais Securities (Tokyo) and West LB Securities Pacific, Ltd(Tokyo) where he assumed the roles of Chief Operating Officer/Operations Director.
Michael graduated from the University of San Francisco with a Bachelor of Business Administration Degree and speaks fluent Japanese and conversant in Spanish.
Carvin is the Commerical Lead, Asia for Institutional Investor. In this role, he is responsible for finding new revenue opportunities and managing existing customer relationships for II Research in Asia. Previous to this role, Carvin has spent 9 years with Questex Media were he has held various roles in Client Services, Project Management and Business Development before becoming the Publisher in 2015. As the Publisher of Questex he directly manages the editorial, operations and sales functions of three regional enterprise publications. Carvin holds a Bachlor Degree in Marketing and Public Relations from the Polytechnic University where he was placed in the Dean’s List.
Sally joined Institutional Investor Research (II Research) in London in December 2019 and is responsible for creating and implementing the marketing strategy to support II Research’s growth objectives, improve the brand reach, drive higher customer engagement and to support product evolution into a fully integrated platform.
Prior to this Sally worked at BennBridge and was responsible for establishing the marketing function in the UK, building brand awareness, credibility and profile raising, supporting business growth and driving revenue of the boutiques. Sally previously worked at Gresham House and Momentum Global Investment Management, responsible for developing strategic positioning using various marketing approaches and ensuring that marketing needs were appropriately met across selected target markets. Sally has also held positions at GAM, Henderson Global Investors and State Street Global Advisors, writing a wide variety of marketing material to a range of client types.
Sally holds a BSc Psychology degree from the University of Southampton, the Investment Management Certificate, as well as taking CFA level 1 and recently achieving a merit in CIM Level 6 Diploma in Professional Marketing (digital strategy).
Dasom is the Marketing Manager at II Research, responsible for driving global digital marketing strategies to support the business’ growth objectives. She joined Institutional Investor through the acquisition of Extel in March 2018.
Dasom has a BA in Media Communications and a MSc in digital culture & information technology at UCL. Dasom comes from a multicultural background and has lived in South Korea, Taiwan, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Poland, the United Kingdom and the United States.
Jessica Giambo, Head of Operations: jessica.giambo@institutionalinvestor.com
II acquired Extel in 2018. For any Extel-related enquiries please contact:
Kristina Djagileva, Sales Support Executive: kristina.djagileva@institutionalinvestor.com
Mariola Mandla, Corporate Project Manager: mariola.mandla@institutionalinvestor.com, +44 20 7779 8815
For voting-related enquires please contact:
Tucker Ewing, Senior Project Manager: tewing@institutionalinvestor.com, +121 222 3643
Dynah Kent, Head of Engagement: dynah.kent@institutionalinvestor.com, +212 224 3107
