< The 2015 Latin America Research Team
Total appearances: 5
Team debut: 1993Holding on to the No. 3 position it first earned in 2013 is the HSBC crew directed by Buenos Aires–based Javier Finkman, 50, and 34-year-old Francisco Schumacher in New York. Schumacher also co-pilots two additional teams to runner-up positions on their respective lineups: in Chile, with Jorge Morgenstern; and in North Andean Countries, with Ramiro Blazquez. The analysts who cover Argentina “combine both top-down and bottom-up research with technical analysis to explore angles that other people aren’t catching,” observes one admirer. “Their perspective is different — it’s more in-depth — and it enables them to do a better job of identifying investment opportunities.” Among the analysts’ long-standing favorites has been Adecoagro, a Luxembourg-based agricultural company with extensive farm holdings in South America. They included its New York Stock Exchange–listed shares in their model portfolio in February 2014, noting that they were trading at a discount to net asset value. Moreover, Adecoagro had expanded its production capacity for sugar and ethanol amid a favorable pricing outlook, they advised. By the middle of last month, the stock had leaped 29.6 percent, to $9.25, lagging its domestic peers by 39.6 percentage points but besting the broad regional market by 21.8 percentage points. HSBC’s crew remains bullish, believing that a share price of $12.50 is justified.
