Jeffrey Sprague | First TeamJeffrey Sprague Citi Second Team John Inch, Merrill Lynch Third Team Robert Cornell, Lehman Runners-Up Scott Davis, Morgan Stanley; C. Stephen Tusa Jr., JPMorgan |
| Jeffrey Sprague, 46, has been No. 1 in every year of the new millennium. The Citi analyst attracted widespread media attention, including coverage in the New York Times and Barron’s, when he published a report in April noting that General Electric Co. was worth a lot more than its valuation; he urged the Fairfield, Connecticut– based conglomerate to unlock shareholder value by spinning off components such as entertainment unit NBC Universal and financial services subsidiary GE Money. “Jeff is forthright in his opinions, which made us rethink GE’s hidden values,” explains one money manager. Other investors did too, helping to halt the stock’s 2.9 percent year-to-date decline and boost it 13.4 percent by mid-September, against the sector’s gain of 3.5 percent. After four years on the third team, John Inch rises to second and is prized for his “courage in highlighting the negative aspects of stocks he likes,” as one client puts it. The Merrill Lynch researcher upgraded 3M Co., a St. Paul, Minnesota–based diversified-consumer-products manufacturer, to buy in March 2006, at $73.69, largely because he was impressed with new CEO George Buckley. The stock proved volatile, as Inch predicted, but had rallied to $89.02 by mid-September 2007. Robert Cornell of Lehman Brothers, who slips one notch to third, is “excellent at taking the long view,” according to one client. Case in point: Cornell’s August 2002 upgrade of Danaher Corp. to overweight as a bargain at a split-adjusted $27.63. Shares of the Washington, D.C.–based toolmaker advanced 19.6 percent in the 12 months ended mid-September. | |
