Roberto Guevara & team Raymond James Latin America
The buy side says: “Nobody knows Argentina better than Roberto.”
Argentina was removed from the survey last year after MSCI downgraded the country to frontier-market status, but we brought it back following numerous requests from analysts and money managers. The nine-strong Raymond James Latin America ensemble captained by Buenos Aires–based Roberto Guevara returns in first place, the position the firm claimed in 2006, 2007 and 2009. (The sector did not meet the vote minimum to merit publication in 2008.) Guevara, 46, is “a veteran analyst with vast institutional knowledge — he knows the companies, players and politics,” declares one client. Winning calls of late include a June 2010 reiteration of an outperform rating on the American depositary receipts of Grupo Financiero Galicia, Argentina’s largest nongovernment bank, on the belief that a faster-than-expected cleanup of legacy assets along with the acquisition of Cia. Financiera Argentina would boost the Buenos Aires–based firm’s return on equity. In May, Galicia reported that year-over-year ROE had bolted from 11.2 percent to 34.6 percent in the first quarter. By the end of July, the stock had catapulted 142.4 percent, from $5.87 to $14.23, and roared past the broad market by 94.1 percentage points.
