Frank McGann & team Bank of America Merrill Lynch First-place appearances: 2

Total appearances: 18

Team debut: 1994 Frank McGann’s two-person Bank of America Merrill Lynch crew slips from second place to third. “Frank has a deep level of understanding of the oil and gas sector and, most importantly, demonstrates independent judgment and thought in his research products,” insists one money manager. The analysts report on 14 stocks and remain cautious on the sector, making only selective recommendations. “We are keeping an eye out for domestic pricing for refined products in a more complicated economic environment, especially for the large, integrated state-owned oil companies” such as Petróleo Brasileiro,” says McGann. Key for the team, he adds, is Petrobras’s “ability to grow oil and gas output, which should increasingly differentiate the companies.” Top picks looking ahead include Canada’s Pacific Rubiales Energy Corp. “We expect the company to be able to define key assets that will add to oil and gas output and earnings growth over the next medium term,” McGann explains. He and his BofA Merrill cohorts also prefer Brazilian oil and gas players Petrobras, QGEP Participaçoes and Ultrapar Participações, advising clients to “be positioned in names where a combination of better underlying volume growth trends and improved pricing outlook should help to deliver above-trend growth in earnings and cash flow,” he says. McGann also steers, with Marcos Buscaglia, the No. 2 squad in Argentina coverage.