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Hiroshi Torii
SMBC Nikko Securities
"Torii-san has one of the widest coverage universes and is very knowledgeable on the real estate sector as a whole."
In first place for a second consecutive year is Hiroshi Torii, 34. The SMBC Nikko Securities analyst added five Japanese real estate investment trusts to his coverage list last year, bringing his total to 39. Torii’s top pick for the year is Industrial & Infrastructure Fund Investment Corp., which he upgraded from neutral to outperform in February, at ¥778,000. “I expect its earnings per share will continue to go up drastically,” he says, citing the Tokyo-based commercial REIT’s “good property acquisitions and management quality.” By mid-March the shares had already jumped 26.9 percent, to ¥987,000, and shot past the Nikkei 225 index by 14.5 percentage points. “His stock picks have always been good, and I have a lot of respect for him,” says one portfolio manager in Tokyo. — Ben Mattlin