Robert Pulleyn & team
Morgan Stanley
Morgan Stanley repeats in second place, this time under the sole leadership of Robert Pulleyn. (His co-captain last year, Martinus [Martijn] Rats, oversees integrated-oil research and pilots a runner-up team in Oil & Gas Exploration & Production.) Clients prize the London-based twosome’s “strong corporate relationships and ability to stay atop trends,” in the words of one London-based asset manager. The analysts are selectively bullish for the year, noting that public awareness of offshore projects under consideration “has increased to a record high,” as Pulleyn says. Recommended stocks include Subsea 7, a U.K.-based builder of offshore equipment. They upgraded it from equal weight to overweight in September, at 136.40 Norwegian kroner, on its increasing order flow; improving vessel-utilization rates; and rising prices, primarily in North Sea installations. Through late December the shares slipped 3.2 percent, to Nkr132.10, but nonetheless outperformed the sector by 5.6 percentage points. — Ben Mattlin