Darren Cohn, Svetlana Sukhanova & team
UBS
First-place appearances: 0

Total appearances: 2

Team debut: 2011

After a two-year absence, UBS returns to this list, reclaiming the No. 3 spot it won in 2011. Moscow-based Darren Cohn and Svetlana Sukhanova co-captain the team, which reports on eight regional consumer companies and also merits a runner-up position in Consumer/Nondiscretionary. “The major issues for the sector would remain pressure on household incomes and potential trading downtrends,” says Sukhanova, “although food retailers are definitely more protected than their nonfood colleagues.” An additional concern, she notes, is the “growing competitive pressure among key players in the fight to gain incremental market share.” In this context the analysts relaunched coverage on X5 Retail Group in August with a negative rating. The global despositary receipts of Russia’s second-largest retailer had slumped 17.7 percent by mid-March, lagging the sector by 46.2 percentage points, before reversing course to end May up 20 percent since they reinitiated — but they still underperformed by 9.8 percentage points.