Sberbank scoops investor awards

Sberbank, Russia's biggest bank, has won two major awards for its investment research - from Thomson Reuters Extel and Sammons Associates.

In the All-Russia Thomson Reuters Extel Survey of Institutional Investors, Sberbank completed a virtual clean sweep of awards, coming ahead of Russia's second biggest bank, VTB, last year's winners, and Morgan Stanley, who placed third, in the general and sectoral categories.

The Extel survey, carried out from March to May 2013, reflects the contribution of over 2,200 buy-side firms, 2,500 analysts from 250 brokerage firms/research houses and nearly 1,000 of Europe’s largest quoted companies worldwide.

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Sberbank Investment Research - formerly Troika Dialog, before being merged into Sberbank CIB in mid-2012 - was ranked No. 1 Russia brokerage in nine equity research sectors, including banks & other financials, consumer/retail, economics and macroeconomics, equity strategy, fixed income, metals and mining, oil and gas, telecommunications and utilities.

 Sberbank's research analysts also picked up individual awards, taking spots 1-7 and in total 10 out of the top 12 places (Sberbank unless otherwise stated):

1. Gleb Maximov (oil and gas);
2. Alex Fak (oil and gas);
3. Yevgeny Gavrilenkov (chief economist);
4. Mikhail Stiskin (metals, mining and chemicals);
5. Andrew Keeley (financials);
6. Mikhail Krasnoperov (consumer);
7. Andy Smith (head of equity research);
8. Dmitry Loukashov (VTB, oil and gas);
9. Alexander Kotikov (utilities);
10. Anna Lepetukhina (telecoms, IT and media);
11. Dmitry Kolomytsyn (Morgan Stanley, metals and mining);
12. Irina Lapshina (metals, mining and chemicals).

Paolo Zaniboni, managing director of Sberbank Investment Research, said the Extel survey positioned Sberbank as "the foremost research house in Russia and the CIS region.

These results serve to reinforce our clients’ confidence in us and the broader range of investment banking services that Sberbank CIB offers.”

Andy Smith, head of Sberbank's equity research, told RBTH that the research team had benefited from a "client-centric" approach, and had "emphasized investment ideas across the consumer-linked parts of the market."

The Sberbank CIB Ivanov Index (a basket of circa 20 consumer-linked equities across Retail, Banking, Telcos, Media, Real Estate & Transport) was launched earlier this year, and has outperformed MICEX by almost 27 percent over the past six months.

Smith also said Sberbank had increased research productivity "by cutting down on peripheral and non-commercial stock coverage and simplifying many of our central investment themes."

 Earlier this year, Sberbank hired Kingsmill Bond from Citibank as chief equities strategist.

Bond replaced Chris Weafer, chief strategist at Moscow brokerages Sberbank, Troika, Alfa Bank and Uralsib over the last 15 years, who left Sberbank in March.

In a separate award also announced last week, Sberbank's Smith won the Sammons Associates Head of Equity Research EMEA Award – an annual survey of 1,600 fund managers across 450 global institutions.

Another major financial survey, Institutional Investor, is due to announce its industry awards June 18.