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Rishad Ahluwalia, Saul Doctor & team
J.P. Morgan
“They offer a terrific combination of analysis, regulatory updates and trade ideas.”
Taking top honors for a second straight year is the J.P. Morgan quartet conducted by Rishad Ahluwalia and Saul Doctor, who also pilots the third-place team in Quantitative Analysis. The London-based crew is commended by a portfolio manager in Paris for its “excellent analytics,” while an asset manager in New York praises the group’s “grasp of the big picture.” The market for collateralized loan obligations came roaring back in the U.S. last year — volume topped $54 billion, the highest level since 2007 — but in Europe it remains lifeless, in large part because of European Union regulations that require issuers to maintain a significant portion in their own funds. However, the region’s first postcrisis CLOs are in the works, one from Cairn Capital and the other from Pramerica Fixed Income. “Underlying bank-loan collateral is coming up for refinancing over the next couple of years, so there’s going to be a huge liquidity need from the leveraged finance market in Europe,” explains Ahluwalia, 36. “Historically, CLOs have been very important in providing that financing liquidity.” The team is recommending that clients buy new-issue European CLOs as they become available, since the spread and liquidity premiums are likely to be attractive relative to new-issue U.S. CLOs. A graduate of Duke University in the U.S. with a bachelor’s degree in political science and economics, Ahluwalia covered structured securities at Lehman Brothers before joining J.P. Morgan in 2002. Doctor, 33, joined J.P. Morgan one year later; he earned a master’s degree in financial mathematics from King’s College London. — Carolyn Koo