Philipp Zieschang & team UBS
The buy side says: “They provide experience, access and depth — and they know everybody in the country.”
Philipp Zieschang, 40, and his Zurich-based team of 26 analysts at UBS hold on to the crown for a second consecutive win. “They’re global, and at the same time they’re Swiss. So they can leverage their global expertise and follow the big medical technology, pharmaceutical, industrial and capital goods stocks — where they are particularly strong — while giving you a very good understanding of local small caps,” explains one buy-side fan. One example: Throughout last year the team pounded the table on Dufry Group, a small-cap company that operates duty-free shops in airports around the world; the team first recommended the stock in September 2009, at Sf55, citing increased confidence in the Basel-based outfit’s business model and “higher global duty-free spending resulting in higher top-line growth, better gross margins and thus better free-cash-flow generation,” Zieschang says. The stock had catapulted 128.7 percent by the end of last year, to Sf125.80, and trounced Switzerland’s broad market by 123.9 percentage points. The UBS analysts “are independent and willing to buck the conventional wisdom,” avers one fan.
