 |
Ashish Gupta
& team |
| Credit Suisse |
First-Place Appearances: 2
Total Appearances: 10
Team Debut: 2000 |
Ashish Gupta, 40, captains his Credit Suisse group to a repeat first-place finish. Eight members of the team work out of Mumbai, and the ninth is in Hong Kong. They have expanded their coverage universe by nearly a dozen names over the past year, for a total of 122 Indian companies, and garner accolades for “only alerting clients to high-conviction calls, not run-of-the-mill maintenance notes,” as one fund manager puts it. An example, investors say, is the analysts’ note in January 2013 advising of a potential increase in corporate information technology spending and restating their outperform ratings on three longtime favorites. New Delhi–based software developer HCL Technologies, has been favored since October 2011, at 401.60 rupees; Tata Consultancy Services, a multinational IT services provider that is headquartered in Mumbai, was first touted in September 2011, at Rs1,043.50; and Bangalore’s Wipro, which delivers system integration and IT services, has been overweighted since October 2012, at Rs299.72. Worldwide IT spending inched up in 2013, constrained by a slowdown in key emerging markets in the second half of the year. Even so, from the squad’s reiteration through late April 2014, while India’s broad market climbed 10.5 percent, HCL’s shares soared 128.6 percent, to Rs1,449.40; Tata Consultancy’s rocketed 69.7 percent, to Rs2,205.25; and Wipro’s leaped 44.2 percent, to Rs519.25. “They have that rare combination of a high IQ and humility,” cheers another admirer. |
