< The 2016 All-Europe Research Team
Yi-Dan Wang & team
Deutsche Bank
First-place appearances: 1
Total appearances: 12
Team debut: 2002
Deutsche Bank’s two-person squad captained by Yi-Dan Wang slips from second place to third. The pair wins accolades from one fund manager for its “innovative research combined with a lot of management conference calls to add to relevant topics.” London-based Wang and her teammate in Frankfurt report on 14 regional medical technologies and services names. They see upside ahead “as the companies which had temporary operating setbacks in 2015 recover and more companies in the sector benefit from prospects of more robust earnings growth,” says Wang, 43. One name the analysts preferred last year is a favorite again this year, despite some concerns in the interim: GN Store Nord. Shares of the Denmark-based developer of hearing aids, diagnostics equipment and headsets closed 2015 at 125.30 Danish kroner, down 6.5 percent for the preceding 12 months — well behind both its local peers, which soared 36.5 percent, and the regional sector, up 19.8 percent, and lagging Europe’s broad market by 8.7 percentage points. “This was due to some earnings downgrades, but more importantly, material derating driven by a number of concerns that appeared during the year,” the team leader explains. “At 15.5 times consensus, one year forward price-to-earnings and at around 25 percent discount to its key hearing device peers — while offering prospects of far more robust earnings growth — we believe the shares in GN have a very favorable risk-reward profile.” Their price objective for the stock, which closed at Dkr121.70 in mid-January, is Dkr215.
