Viju George
J.P. Morgan
First-place appearances: 0

Total appearances: 2

Analyst debut: 2012

Repeating in second place is Viju George. One client appreciates the extra effort George makes “to find new angles and provide detailed and differentiated analysis.” The sector’s prospects are looking brighter, according to the J.P. Morgan analyst, who reports “a sense of greater optimism about the companies’ growth profiles, thanks to a recovery in the U.S. and Europe, which contribute over three fourths of the industry’s revenues.” Indeed, India’s information technology shares bolted 57.1 percent year to date through mid-October, against the S&P BSE Sensex Index’s 5.8 percent rise. Even so, he notes that “pricing trends are still not positive enough, despite the improving demand scenario.” George favors Infosys, an IT consulting and software services provider based in Bangalore, in the near term, seeing what he calls “low-hanging fruit” — such as scope for cost optimization and redefining some on-site roles toward offshore — that will drive interim earnings growth, even if revenue growth takes longer to materialize. He also is recommending stocks that are more reasonably valued on a price-earnings-multiple basis, such as Noida-based business-process outsourcer HCL Technologies and Pune’s Tech Mahindra, which develops and markets software for telecommunications companies. “A good demand environment may result in a greater possibility of the cheaper stocks with good-enough business models getting rerated,” he concludes. Another supporter lauds George as “a structured thinker who knows the movement of the variables in the sector.” — Carolyn Koo