Finance-Magazine.com - The vote for the survey this year increased by 59 per cent

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Saturday, 20th April 2024

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The vote for the survey this year increased by 59 per cent

This year has seen the largest vote in the twenty two year history of the FINANCE Stockbroking Survey of Institutional Investors from which Goodbody stockbrokers have emerged as clear winners. Goodbody win ten of the twelve equity categories. NCB stop a clean sweep by Goodbody by taking both the ‘Technical Analysis’ and ‘Best International Research (Excluding Irish Equities)’. Davy place in second position in the overall firm ratings with nine second place finishes. Merrion come in second place in five categories. And Bloxham get a clean sweep in bonds.

This year’s results have proved to be a resounding victory for Goodbody by winning ten of the twelve equity categories for best firm. It also came first in winning 9 individual categories, against 8 for Merrion, who performed better in the personal analyst and dealers categories than they did as a firm.

Although Davy won only one category (Best Equity Book) it is still positioned in second place, in terms of its voting strength in key categories, such as Overall Equity Research, where it garnered 16.9 p.c. of the total vote (against 19.1 p.c. for Goodbody, and 15.9 p.c. and 15.4 p.c., respectively, for Merrion and NCB).

This category also illustrates the two-tier nature of the market, with the four other firms closely competing for the honours in the second tier.The breakdown in the Best Irish EquityResearch Overall category for second tier firms was: Collins Stewart 9.8 p.c., Bloxham 9.2 p.c., Citi 7.2 p.c., and the re-branded RBS (formerly ABN AMRO) 6.5 p.c.

2008 may be a year to forget for the industry with some harsh realities to accept going into 2009. Comments made by respondents to the survey would indicate 2009 or the near term future may look bleak as investors still no longer see Ireland as a buy. ‘Ireland is becoming a much smaller part of our universe’ says one survey participant and ‘Ireland has occupied less of my time this year as I am a long only manager and the market is very small’ said one fund manager whose comments indicate perhaps the most interested parties in certain Irish stocks, notably banks, have been short sellers.

The vote for the survey this year increased by 59 per cent based on the number of institutions who voted. The number of unique institutions who voted is 227. These broke down into 31.8 p.c. hedge funds, and 68.2 p.c. non hedge funds.

By type of institution, the poll broke down as follows: 54.5 p.c. mutual funds; 12.8 p.c. private banks; 6.2 p.c. insurance and life assurance companies 3.7 p.c. private equity; and the rest, 22.8 p.c. from other groups such as portfolio and asset managers, sovereign wealth funds, large pension funds, state owned banks and corporate traders. The full methodology behind this year’s survey is set out on page 16.

NCB keep Goodbody from dishing out a whitewash in all equity categories. NCB’s expertise stands to them in Best International Research (Excluding Irish Equities) and Technical Analysis.

On the bonds side Bloxham have overtaken Davy sweeping the board by winning in all categories.

Goodbody also perform well in the individual analyst awards taking seven of the categories which is up from last year when they won four of the individual ‘firsts’. In the individual categories Merrion come just behind Goodbody performing strongly with six wins. On a related note, NCB announced earlier this month that it is to become a market maker in up to 40 Irish quoted companies. NCB joins both Davy and Goodbody as market makers the move is expected to increase liquidity in the Irish equity market.

Overall, Goodbody won 20 “firsts”, against 10 for Merrion, 2 for NCB, 1 for Davy, and 1 for Collins Stewart.