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The 2015 All-Europe Research Team: Food Producers, No. 2: Jeffrey Stent & team
Jeffrey Stent guides his three-person, London-based troupe to a repeat second-place finish.
Total appearances: 4
Team debut: 2012
Jeffrey Stentguides his three-person, London-based troupe to a repeat second-place finish. The Exane BNP Paribas analysts are lukewarm on Europe’s food producers as a whole and believe that investors can expect “another lackluster year for top-line growth in 2015,” says Stent. Money managers would be wise to “plan on balance sheets being a likely share price performance differentiator,” he adds. Reforms to the European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy that were announced in June 2013 — such as the abolition of sugar quotas — are set to take effect in 2017, and Stent and his colleagues have already correctly predicted big influences on certain names. In September 2013 they began recommending that clients sell shares of the world’s No. 1 sugar producer, Südzucker of Germany, and buy those of No. 2, U.K.-based Associated British Foods. “Our theory was that the changes to the European sugar regime were going to be very negative for all European sugar producers,” explains Stent, 40. “But given the changing shape of Associated British Foods, this was not a sufficiently big negative to dampen investors’ enthusiasm for its retail business, Primark.” The stocks have since moved in opposite directions. By the end of last month, Südzucker had lost 53 percent of its value and was trading at €11.17, while ABF had soared 68.9 percent, to 3,103p. During the same period, the sector climbed 18.1 percent. One pleased investor lauds the team’s “excellent research notes, with questions for company meetings” and “broad coverage.”