Marcos Assumpção & team  Itaú BBA

The buy side says: “Marcos is one of the best sell-side analysts I’ve ever met.”

Climbing one rung to finish on top for the first time is the Itaú BBA trio helmed by São Paulo–based Marcos Assumpção, who also directs the No. 3 team in Metals & Mining. The analysts upgraded Klabin from neutral to outperform in April 2010, dubbing the shares a bargain at 4.93 reais. The São Paulo–based maker of corrugated boxes, envelopes and other packaging was well-­positioned to benefit from growth in domestic consumption, the first-­teamers argued. Good call. The company reported in April 2011 that year-over-­year first-­quarter net income had catapulted from R42 million ($26.2 million) to R140 million. Klabin’s stock had soared to R6.65 earlier that month before falling back to R5.29 by late July, for a gain of 7.3 percent that beat the sector by 33.3 percentage points. Assumpção, 35, who covered pulp and paper for BofA Merrill Lynch Global Research before joining Itaú in 2009, earned an MBA in 2004 at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.