Jorge Kuri & team Morgan Stanley
The buy side says: “He’s always a step ahead of everybody else.”
After three years in the runner-up position, the Morgan Stanley trio directed by New York–based Jorge Kuri leaps to the top spot. Kuri, who turns 44 this month, was “the only analyst able to foresee the awaited consumer turnaround in Brazil,” marvels one supporter. In December the squad initiated coverage on Brasil Insurance Participações e Administração with an overweight rating, at 16.27 reais, on growing demand in Brazil and rising premiums. Shares of the insurance broker, which is headquartered in Rio de Janeiro, had surged 21.6 percent, to R19.79, and led the sector by 36.8 percentage points, by the end of July. In February the analysts upgraded two São Paulo–based credit card transaction processors, Cielo and Redecard, from underweight to equal weight, as bargains at a split-adjusted R27.86 and R17.81, respectively. The stocks shot up 54.7 percent, to R43.10, and 49.9 percent, to R26.70, through July. During the same period the sector declined by 9.4 percent. Kuri joined Morgan Stanley in 1997 after earning an MBA at New York’s Columbia Business School.
