< The 2015 All-Europe Research Team

Total Appearances: 5

Team Debut: 2011

Barclays leaps from third place to claim its first No. 1 finish on this roster, though team leader Julien Roch has enjoyed the view from the top before. In 2009 the 45-year-old analyst guided Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s squad to first place. He joined Barclays that year and in 2011 led the firm to its debut appearance on this list, as a runner-up. His four-strong, London-based troupe reports on 16 European media companies and is generally positive on the sector, whose shares bolted 19.8 percent during the 12-month period through January, besting the regional broad market by 11.8 percentage points. BofA Merrill’s analysts upgraded diversified French media group Lagardère from equal weight to overweight in June 2013, at €19.66. The stock was then cheap at eight times price to earnings, they advised, and significant catalysts lay ahead. These included management’s planned sale of the conglomerate’s 20 percent stake in Canal Plus France, Europe’s second-largest pay-television provider, as well as its reevaluation of business services and increasing focus on the sports division. Until the impacts of these drivers cohered, investors could enjoy the 6 percent dividend yield they were being paid to wait, the BofA Merrill team noted. Lagardère divested its Canal Plus holding nearly five months later, raising €1.02 billion ($1.4 billion) from domestic rival Vivendi, and by late May the stock had run up 34.4 percent, to €26.43, outdistancing the sector by 16.1 percentage points. That was rich enough for the researchers, and they downgraded Lagardère to equal weight. At the end of January, the share price had not since matched that value, closing at €24.28, for a loss of 8.1 percent over a period during which the sector jumped 17.5 percent.