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| Oleg Maximov |
| Sberbank CIB |
| "Oleg keeps a finger on the pulse of the industry." |
Oleg Maximovclaims his fifth consecutive first-place finish. The Sberbank CIB researcher monitors 13 companies with “sharper eyes and ears than his competitors,” according to one buy-side backer. Maximov, 42, elevated Moscow’s Transneft to top pick in January 2012, at $1,500, on its increasing earnings visibility and free-cash-flow generation. Shares of the state-owned pipeline operator surged 52.2 percent, to $2,283, and outpaced the RTS Oil & Gas Index by 56.9 percentage points, through May 2013. In October he downgraded Gazprom from buy to hold, at $4.92, after Russian President Vladimir Putin directed the Moscow-based company’s CEO, Alexey Miller, to build an expensive pipeline to Vladivostok. The shares had tumbled 24.2 percent, to $3.73, by late May. “Oleg has a great strategic mind that, coupled with extensive industry knowledge, allows him to approach well-known stories from new angles and outline both existing value factors and new developments affecting the fair value of a stock,” explains one ally. —Ben Mattlin |
