Jack (Yuhin) Yeung & team
Morgan Stanley
First-place appearances: 0

Total appearances: 8

Team debut: 2005

After two years as a runner-up, Morgan Stanley leaps to second place, a position on this lineup it most recently held in 2010. The group of four analysts is now captained by Hong Kong–based Jack (Yuhin) Yeung, who joined the firm in October from Credit Suisse and takes the reins from Kate Zhu. Leader of the squad for the past seven years, Zhu moved to the firm’s investment banking unit. The researchers report on 34 auto industry names from offices in Hong Kong, Seoul and Taipei, earning client praise for being both knowledgeable and well-connected to corporate managements. In addition, one backer insists, “they have among the best modeling and numbers work on the Street.” Yeung and his colleagues are bullish on companies that have exposure to the sport utility vehicles and luxury car subsectors. “Compared with other passenger vehicle segments, SUVs and luxury autos have lower penetration rates and stronger demand,” he notes. “Therefore, we expect them to have secular growth in the next three to five years and to continue to outperform the industry average.” Against this backdrop, the analysts recommend that investors overweight China’s Great Wall Motor Co. They remain positive despite having cut their target price for its shares from HK$65 to HK$62 in January, citing management’s plan to increase annual sales by 17 percent in 2014, to 880,000 vehicles, indicating an easing from last year’s 21 percent growth. Even so, they advise, Great Wall is a market leader in manufacturing SUVs and boasts especially strong positioning in the mainland’s tier-three and tier-four cities, which are mostly prefecture-level municipalities. The stock closed at HK$35.25 in late April.