2016 All-Asia Research Team: Technology/IT Services & Software, No. 1: Parag Gupta & team

Parag Gupta & team

Morgan Stanley

First-Place Appearances: 1

Total Appearances: 14

Team Debut: 1997

Fielding a five-member team captained byParag Gupta, Morgan Stanley is No. 1 on this roster for the first time, rising from second place. Gupta is based in Mumbai and has been with the firm since April 2004. He previously worked at accounting powerhouses Anderson, in assurance and advisory, and Ernst & Young, in corporate finance. The 36-year-old researcher holds a bachelor’s degree in commerce from the University of Mumbai. He and his crew, who report on 40 companies in Asia ex-Japan, possess ”strong knowledge of the sector,” one admirer offers. They forecast that sales trends for India’s information technology industry are likely to soften versus the past as market share gains moderate. Moreover, “while global IT services spends are likely to grow between 3 and 5 percent, the nature of spends is changing toward more discretionary or consulting-related areas, popularly termed as ‘change the business’ spends, as against ‘run the business’ spends of the past,” Gupta explains. “In this scenario, we believe, companies with strong domain expertise and consulting capabilities are likely to benefit at the expense of those that continue to thrive on pure maintenance-related work.” They recommend favoring companies that boast a global footprint with strong offerings and attractive valuations that are beating expectations. Infosys is their top Indian pick. The multinational services provider “has seen accelerating large-deal wins, its top clients have been growing strongly, attrition rates have corrected, and revenue growth rates have improved,” he says. Indeed, Morgan Stanley projects that Infosys will increase revenue ahead of the industry in the fiscal year that began last month.