< The 2015 All-Europe Research Team

Total appearances: 12

Team debut: 2004

After spending the past two years in first place, Paul Roger and his three-strong Exane BNP Paribas crew slip back to No. 2. With a coverage list of 15 European building and construction stocks, and an additional 70-odd related companies under surveillance, the 38-year-old researcher and his London-based teammates “cast a wide net,” one portfolio manager observes. They also earn high marks from clients for their annual, proprietary survey of the global cement industry. In January 2014 the Exane study indicated that European building materials stocks were expensive, following a run-up in valuations the previous year; emerging-markets growth would be constrained by rising costs; and the U.S. offered the best opportunities for pricing and volume gains. Accordingly, the analysts cautioned investors on names like Italy’s Buzzi Unicem, believing that the producer’s exposure to emerging and European markets, especially its home turf, would outweigh margin expansion in the U.S. and benefits derived from management’s cost-cutting efforts. At the same time, they deemed France’s Ciments Français attractive, despite sluggish earnings momentum, thanks to balance sheet improvements at parent company Italcementi. Roger and his crew upgraded the stock from neutral to outperform, and by mid-July, when its Italian parent wholly acquired and delisted Ciments Français, the shares had leaped 39.3 percent, to €80.50, outdistancing the sector by 34.6 percentage points.