< The 2016 All-Asia Research Team
Sameer Chopra, Xinnian (Sydney) Zhang & team
Bank of America
Merrill Lynch
First-Place Appearances: 3
Total Appearances: 14
Team Debut: 1996
At No. 2 for a second straight year is the Bank of America Merrill Lynch group overseen by Sameer Chopra, who works out of Sydney, and Xinnian (Sydney) Zhang, stationed in Hong Kong. Chopra also directs, with Simon Garing, the No. 3 Australia/New Zealand crew. In this space one backer singles out for praise their “perspective on the competitive and regulatory environments across the [Association of Southeast Asian Nations] and insightful stock opinions.” Regional telecommunications companies, which offer defensive characteristics in terms of both earnings and steady dividend yields, should outperform, this team contends. For 2016 the analysts expect Indian and Indonesian names to post 10 to 14 percent revenue growth, thanks to improving data uptake and declining smartphone prices. They also forecast that earnings margins in Hong Kong and Singapore will improve, owing to declining subsidies, while higher competition will pressure margins in Thailand. More broadly, capital expenditures and sales for much the region will be largely stable this year, the squad believes, as most telcos have already launched 4G mobile service. “We consider Taiwan and Indonesia to be the two markets where competitive intensity will be the most benign,” Chopra notes. “We see risks of competition picking up in four markets — India, Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines — if new entrants roll out services and get aggressive.” Preferred names among the 30 under the analysts’ coverage include India’s Bharti Infratel, China Mobile Communications Corp., China Unicom (Hong Kong) and the Philippines’ Globe Telecom. Chopra, Zhang, and their colleagues — who work out of Bangkok, Manila, Mumbai, Seoul and Singapore — win raves from another money manager for being “very well-versed in the Hong Kong–China telco space and being able to readily identify opportunities in areas related to balance-sheet requirements and the sensitivities surrounding the major stakeholders in those companies.”
