Haim Israel,
Stephen Pettyfer
& team
Bank of America
Merrill Lynch
In second place for a third straight year is the Bank of America Merrill Lynch trio co-directed by Haim Israel, who works out of Tel Aviv, and Dubai-based Stephen Pettyfer, who also co-leads (with Michael Harris) the team that ranks first in Middle East & North Africa Equity Strategy. “By year end, we estimate, the world will have 5.6 billion cellular users,” Israel notes, and about 13 percent of that total will be subscribers in central and emerging Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Data will be an increasingly important growth driver, he adds, because smartphone penetration is increasing while device prices are decreasing. “We still see some growth opportunities in our space,” he says. “We prefer companies that maximize their dividend payments. Competition and regulation continue to be the main barriers here.” The analysts publish research on 19 companies. — Pam Baker