THIRD TEAM

Christian Audi & team  Santander

Christian Audi shepherds the two-analyst Santander team to a fourth consecutive appearance in third place. The New York–based duo initiated coverage on Rio de Janeiro’s HRT Participações em Petróleo in January with a buy at 1,575 reais, largely on the independent exploration and production concern’s aggressive oil discovery campaign. But six weeks later, when the stock had reached R1,839.99, they downgraded it to underperform, judging its recently announced acquisition of Canada’s UNX Energy Corp. (and its drilling facilities in Namibia, West Africa) to be too costly and too risky. By the end of July, the stock had sunk 21.4 percent, to R1,446, and trailed the sector by 3.1 percentage points. “It was counterconsensus — and proved correct,” observes one buy-side backer.