This content is from:xinyabo体育app
The 2014 All-Europe Fixed-Income Research Team: Utilities, No. 1: James Sparrow
In a sector that has not previously generated publishable results, BNP Paribas analystJames Sparrownotches an impressive debut at the top. He tracks 55 bond issuers from his base in London, earning applause for being “close to the market,” as one investor puts it, “with a good feeling for flows and valuations.” Two long-standing Sparrow favorites are Spain’s Gas Natural SDG, which distributes natural gas in its home country and throughout Latin America, and Portugal’s Energias de Portugal, an electricity and gas supplier to Portugal and Spain. In December 2012, looking to the year ahead, he reiterated his outperform stance on both names, noting that the companies were “adapting well to the sovereign crisis,” Sparrow says, and enhancing value for debt holders through higher yields. Sure enough, in 2013 their credit default swaps tightened from 210 basis points to 103 basis points and from 326 basis points to 209 basis points, respectively. He continues to prefer these periphery utilities over their core counterparts. “The rapid growth in renewable generation in Europe has structurally transformed European power markets, to the detriment of the incumbent integrated utilities,” explains Sparrow, 44. “Core utilities are no longer compensating investors adequately for these risks.” The researcher joined BNP Paribas in 2011 from Royal Bank of Scotland, where he spent seven years as a credit analyst covering the same sector. Sparrow, who holds a bachelor’s degree in modern history and economics from England’s University of Oxford, “has a deep understanding of market dynamics and provides recommendations that actually make sense to implement,” asserts another booster. |
