Francesco Curto & team
Deutsche Bank
For a second year in a row, Francesco Curto and his team at Deutsche Bank take the third tier. Working out of offices in London, New York and Paris, the five-member crew wins plaudits from one money manager in Zurich for “good work on valuations — they include off-balance-sheet items, which is helpful when comparing various companies.” The team is studying valuation from the standpoint of productivity of capital and the structural level of profitability, because with interest rates historically low and capital expenditures still strong in some sectors, there’s “a large risk that price-earnings-based measures overstate the relative attractiveness of some stocks, when compared to either a cash return or free cash flow–based approach,” Curto explains.
— Carolyn Koo