Petr Grishin & team
VTB Capital
First-place appearances: 0

Total appearances: 4

Team debut: 2011

After three years as a runner-up, VTB Capital advances to the third position. The crew is directed by Moscow-based Petr Grishin, whose three colleagues are located in London and Moscow. “Petr and his team have been rightly cautious regarding the outlook for the Russian economy,” proclaims one supporter. In its coverage of that market, Grishin explains, the economists have been “pro-actively flagging the looming slowdown in economic activity, as the country has exhausted its potential to grow within the current institutional framework.” They forecast in December that Russia’s sluggish performance would continue into 2014 and made a guarded call on the ruble for 2014, suggesting that monetary easing will remain unlikely until the inflation picture becomes more favorable. Despite the central bank’s successive moves to temporarily hike the benchmark interest rate from 5.5 percent in early March to 7.5 percent in late April, the currency weakened by 5.6 percent against the dollar over the first five months of this year and by 4.4 percent against the euro. In Africa, Grishin and his teammates deem Rwandan credits outperformers, prefer Zambia over Ghana, recommend Morocco relative to its nonregional peers and urge caution on Nigerian sovereign debt.