Thomas D. Gallagher & team ISI
second team Leslie Alperstein & team Washington Analysis
third team Edward Garlich Jr. & team Concept
Thomas D. Gallagher leads the three-member team at ISI Group to first place for a seventh straight year. Gallagher, 55, “was early at outlining what Federal Reserve Board chairman Ben Bernanke was trying to do,” recalls one client. The team issued a series of reports beginning in October 2008, one day before Congress authorized the creation of the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program, informing clients that, for the first time, the government would be making direct equity investment into faltering banks. The analysts also predicted another first for the Fed, saying the board would coordinate interest rate reductions with other central banks as part of a global strategy for easing the credit crisis. They were right: On October 7, 2008, central banks in Canada, Europe and the U.S. simultaneously announced rate cuts.
Rising one rung to second place is the Washington Analysis Corp. team led by Leslie Alperstein. “They know the ins and outs of Washington,” according to one money manager. The nine-member team wins praise for keeping an eye on exclusivity-protection legislation affecting biologics (that is, medications produced through biological processes, such as gene therapy, rather than chemically). Manufacturers of generic substitutes have been lobbying Congress to limit developers’ exclusivity rights to five years; Alperstein’s team predicted they would get at least ten. In July both houses of Congress added amendments to their health care reform bills calling for 12 years’ exclusivity.
Newcomer Concept Capital finishes third under the direction of Edward Garlich Jr., who led the No. 2–ranked Stanford Group Co. team last year. Garlich and many of his teammates moved en masse to New York–based Concept Capital following the March collapse of Stanford amid allegations of fraud. “They have a broad range of expertise, especially in health care,” asserts one buy-side backer. One example: In September 2008 the 15-member team predicted that the FDA would be granted power to regulate tobacco. The FDA took over regulation of tobacco products in June.
Click here to see the All-America Research Team rankings.
