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Bob Kommers
& team
Deutsche Bank
"Bob and his team do a wonderful job covering the region’s financial institutions."
Reclaiming the top spot after a year in second place is Deutsche Bank’s group of eight, helmed this year by Bob Kommers; he also co-leads, with Aleksandar Stojanovski, a runner-up team in Chemicals. Covering some 80 financial institutions from offices in Poland, Russia, South Africa, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, the analysts are bullish on Sberbank of Russia. “It has largely completed an overhaul of the information technology and branch network, and this should pay off in earnings growth in the next few years,” the crew chief predicts. “It is one of the cheapest banks in the region, and we expect the stock to rerate as it delivers on earnings growth.” They also like Poland’s PKO Bank Polski: “We expect it to show one of the strongest earnings growth of banks in the CE3 [the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland], and that is not priced in,” he adds. Kommers, 44, earned a master’s degree in econometrics at the University of Amsterdam, then covered multiple sectors — in both equity and fixed income — for ABN Amro and UBS before joining Deutsche in 2008. “His participation on management calls often brings out a good point or two, and he and his team are very accessible and responsive to questions,” applauds one ally. — Leslie Kramer