| Anantha Narayan, Manish Nigam
& team | | Credit Suisse | | First-Place Appearances: 5 Total Appearances: 15 Team Debut: 1999 |
Credit Suisse claims the No. 1 position for the first time since 2007, leaping from runner-up. Anantha Narayan and Manish Nigam direct a trio that was among the first “to correctly identify a corporate technology capital expenditure–information technology services demand recovery story in 2013,” according to one client. Over the 12 months through late April, Asia’s IT software and services names rocketed 75 percent, besting the region’s broad market by 71.2 percentage points, and the analysts remain positive. “We see demand trends as positive, with key drivers being a pickup of growth in the financial services segment, increasing penetration in Europe and an increase in discretionary spending by customers,” explains Mumbai-based Narayan, 44. Three of their favorites are Indian players. HCL Technologies has an industry-leading franchise in infrastructure management services that continues to “grow at a scorching pace” for the entire sector, he notes. They target a price of 1,675 rupees for the stock, which closed at 1,449.40 rupees in late April. Tech Mahindra, which trades at a discount to its peers and is poised to benefit from increasing enterprise solutions spending, is reasonably valued at 2,200 rupees, the researchers believe, representing a 21.9 percent premium to its price in late April. Finally, Tata Consultancy Services enjoys both sales and project execution that “continue to be top-in-class, with the company growing at among the fastest rates in the industry,” Narayan says. The shares were trading at 2,205.25 rupees in late April, well below their price objective of 2,750 rupees. Before moving to Credit Suisse in 2011, Narayan was co-head of equities at ICICI Securities and had worked as an analyst at Morgan Stanley and CLSA. He earned a graduate degree in electrical engineering at India’s University of Mumbai and a postgraduate diploma in business management from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. Hong Kong–based Nigam, 43, also directs troupes that merit runner-up positions in two other Technology sectors: Hardware and, with Randy Abrams, Technology/Semiconductors. He returned to the firm in 2009 after a brief stint working at Asia-focused hedge fund manager Sansar Capital. Nigam first joined Credit Suisse in 1997 from CLSA, armed with a bachelor’s degree in engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, and a postgraduate diploma in management from IIM, Calcutta. |
