The 2014 All-Europe Research Team: Household & Personal Care Products, No. 1: Andrew Wood & team

Andrew Wood & team

Sanford C. Bernstein

First-Place Appearances: 5 Total Appearances: 8 Team Debut: 2007

Sanford C. Bernstein extends its reign atop this lineup to a fifth straight year. Singapore-basedAndrew Wood, 49, oversees a four-member team that is spread across London, New York and Pune, India. He is the only researcher this year to lead more than one top-ranked crew, as he also captains the squad that is No. 1 in Food Producers for a fifth year running. Of the four companies his analysts cover in this segment, Henkel is a long-standing favorite. The German company, which manufactures adhesives and home and personal care products, “is a multiyear turnaround story,” Wood explains. “While [earnings before interest and tax] margins have increased from 10 percent to 15 percent in four years,” he adds, “there is still more opportunity for improvement.” Henkel’s shares bolted 35.5 percent last year, to €84.31, pacing the sector by 7.8 percentage points. One Italian buy-side counterpart lauds the Bernstein group’s “very deep analysis of the sector and single stocks” and appreciates the “big amount of sector data used for trend analysis.”