Lucy Feng & team Nomura

Taking the second tier for a second straight year is Nomura’s 22-person team under the direction of Lucy Feng. “She is the go-to person when we have questions regarding this complex industry, offering very timely and accurate calls,” observes one money manager. The analysts — who are based in Hong Kong, India, Korea, Singapore and Taiwan — cover 14 stocks. They are cautious on Chinese banks. “We believe off-balance-sheet property debt redemption will be at a peak in the second half of 2012 and the first half of 2013,” Feng explains, noting that loan renewals and rollovers will be more difficult absent a significant shift in government policy. Hence, the team reduced its earnings-growth estimates, to 13 percent for 2012 and 9 percent for 2013, and raised its credit-cost assumptions for the period. Nonetheless, in March the analysts upgraded China Construction Bank from neutral to buy, making the case that the Beijing-based lender “has a prudent risk management policy and relatively low loan exposure to real estate developers and local government financing platform loans compared to it peers,” Feng says. — Leslie Kramer