The 2004 All-Europe Research Team

Fined if they do; fined if they don't. First, equity research analysts were hit with a record penalty for allegedly positive research bias. Now they're being sued -- successfully, so far -- for writing negative reports. Is there any hope for objective research?

In 2002, Wall Street's major brokerage firms agreed to pay $1.4 billion to settle charges that their analysts wrote puffed-up research reports during the bull market to help their investment banking colleagues win mandates. The settlement ushered in a range of much-needed reforms as firms buttressed Chinese walls between analysts and investment bankers, openly declared potential conflicts of interest and revived that nearly forgotten piece of advice -- the sell recommendation.

但是，法国奢侈品制造商诉讼的成功LvmhMoëtHennessyLouisVuitton对抗摩根士丹利威胁要破坏最近的大部分进展。LVMH声称该公司的分析师Claire Kent通过编写公司未能与时尚竞争对手Gucci集团进行步伐，不公平地诋毁LVMH。虽然其他一些分析师共享了肯特的观点，但他们的公司当时没有建议Gucci，这是一个明显地离开摩根士丹利的事实，即LVMH将其发表偏见的研究，以支持银行客户。

如果LVMH的胜利 - 它赢得了摩根士丹利的判决 - 升起上诉，它可以鼓励其他公司回答分析师对诉讼的批评，迫使分析师扣留强烈的观点。公司甚至可能会降低有争议的地区的覆盖范围。

“这是一个可怕的发展，因为它说如果你发出一个不利的意见，那么你可以被起诉，”摩根斯坦利国际总裁Stephan Newhouse讲述机构投资者。他坚持认为它不会被枪杀亚博赞助欧冠并开始搬到诉讼。然而，裁决后几天，摩根士丹利暂停了LVMH的覆盖范围。由诉讼创造的“无法牢门的情况”留下了“无法表达她诚实地持有关于LVMH的信仰”'纽屋后来在一份声明中表示。

No less a critic than Eliot Spitzer, the New York state attorney general who initiated the unprecedented U.S. research settlement, said that the French court was wrong to cite the conflicts of interest that triggered his case. "To the extent that the French court found liability without finding that the analyst misrepresented her opinion, I disagree with the finding,'' he told theNew York Times.

The same day that the French court issued its LVMH judgment, Sodexho Alliance, a French contract catering company, announced that it was considering action against Smith Barney Citigroup for an allegedly erroneous research note. That note attributed a sharp rise in working capital at Sodexho's U.K. subsidiary to previously undisclosed securitizations. The company requested that France's new regulator, the Autorité des Marchés Financiers, investigate a drop in its share price. Sodexho phoned the analyst, Adrian Cattley, and explained that the securitizations were not new and hadn't affected working capital. Cattley issued an amended note that accepted the company's explanations but maintained his sell recommendation. Both sides said they were satisfied with the outcome, though the industry remains alert to a heightened risk of lawsuits.

“投资银行已经做了相当多的好的卧室rk to create lots of blue water between analysts and corporate financiers,'' says Keith Jones, chief executive at Morley Fund Management, a unit of British insurer Aviva. "And here we are with analysts under attack from the other side. The last thing we want is a dumbing down of analysts' views and opinions.''

实际上，更多的是，投资者继续渴望投资银行的敏锐，富富有洞察力的研究，以及其股权研究最多的公司，根据2004年全欧洲研究团队排名的结果，是瑞银。大瑞士银行拥有八名胜利者。

今年的机构投资者正在亚博赞助欧冠以一种新的方式在欧洲股权研究中展示最佳分析师，以便更精确地与现行的市场实践更准确地说。在目前的问题中，我们揭示了泛欧工业部门，开发的宏观学科和西欧国家的整体欧洲研究团队获奖者。3月，我们将为欧洲，中东和非洲的新兴市场发布行业，宏观和国家排名，以前包括在2月份排名中。去年的成果在领导表中已经调整，以反映这些变化：例如，瑞银例如在2003年以三名第一名获奖者贷记，当时它也在重新计算的基础上完成。Smith Barney花旗集团在第二位重演，紧随其后的瑞士信贷第一波士顿和Merrill Lynch，它绑第三个。

The leading firms' reforms appear to have reestablished a greater rapport with investors. Nearly two thirds of survey respondents say that they trust sell-side research, and quality concerns seem to have abated. Voters rated the overall quality of sell-side research at 6.25 on a scale of 1 to 10 (the highest); the ratings compared favorably with last year's 5.93 and reversed two years of declines.

然而，投资者留住了对欧洲股市研究的严重关切。他们两个最大的担忧？分析师仍然不愿意批评公司，因为他们依赖于管理信息，而且 - 尽管改革 - 投资银行关系造成的利息冲突可能会损害研究的客观性。（有关完整的详细信息，请参阅我们的网站www.instutionalinvestor.com。）

Conflicts are "so endemic in the system,'' says Crispin Odey, eponymous founder of hedge fund Odey Asset Management. "Very few analysts are independent thinkers. You can't write something bad -- you just don't get access after that.'' The two recent French incidents underscore what many analysts have contended all along: that, in the words of one senior research executive, "your average analyst has far more pressure from corporates than they ever got from investment bankers.''

Investment banks will have ample opportunity in 2004 to prove they are addressing these and other pressures. London-based banks face a July deadline for complying with new rules from the U.K.'s Financial Services Authority governing potential conflicts of interest among researchers, investment bankers and traders. The regulations bar analysts from participating in investment banking pitches or road shows, restrict dealing by analysts and their firms ahead of research publication and prohibit compensation based on investment banking deals.

The European Commission, the European Union's executive agency, also is considering a September report from an advisory panel that recommended a set of principles designed to provide greater disclosures and safeguards against potential conflicts of interest. No legislative proposal is expected right away; in the wake of the Parmalat scandal, concerns about equity analysts have given way to worries about accountants. Nevertheless, the big role played by several investment banks in marketing the Italian food giant's debt and recommending its shares could create pressure for new EU rules on research.

对目前的研究实践来说更深远，潜在更具破坏性，是英国FSA的另一组建议。这些都需要基金管理人员支付自己的口袋，而不是通过交易委员会支付卖方的研究。Paul Instors，前Gartmore投资管理董事长，促进了英国财政部，作为提高研究和减少资产管理成本的手段，由Paul Insters作为提高透明度的手段促进了拆卸研究成本的想法。许多分析师和基金管理人员正在敦促FSA只是需要更加披露研究成本。批评者说，强制性的分开会导致研究部门的新鲜震撼，在已经缩减的研究部门。他们争夺的净结果将是与不需要解开的金融中心相比将伦敦放在竞争劣势。

无论FSA采取什么路线，分析师都面临着越来越大的压力，表明他们的研究增加了价值。基金管理人员寻求省钱的方法正在微调他们对卖方的研究质量评估，并试图为他们认为最有帮助的工作的公司颁发更多委员会。

Baring Asset Management's in-house analysts rate their sell-side counterparts twice a year, says chief investment officer Michael Hughes. Last year, for the first time, they rated individual analysts rather than firms, a change designed to identify precisely who is doing the best sell-side work.

"Research has to have real value,'' says Hughes. "Key recommendations -- buy, sell, hold -- are still what it's all about. You've got to make money. But people here do value researchers who can give insight into industry trends, management and the like.''

Of course, research directors are being asked to confront new legal and regulatory threats and meet demands for more original and tightly focused research without adding staff. In most cases, research department head counts have been cut by 30 percent or more since 2000. Some analysts are simply opting to decamp. William de Winton, who this year co-leads the top-ranked Banks team with Davide Serra at Morgan Stanley, left the firm in January to join hedge fund manager Lansdowne Partners. "The industry is more regulated than it was five years ago and less remunerative than it was three years ago," says de Winton. "You've got to work harder for less. Therefore it's less enjoyable."

Few people have more cause to complain about the state of the research business these days than de Winton's former colleague Kent, the Morgan Stanley analyst at the center of the LVMH affair. The French court ruling publicly questioned her credibility. Kent, whose Luxury Goods team slides to second place this year after six years in first, declines to comment, but Morgan Stanley sources say that it was her decision to suspend LVMH coverage, out of fear that the ruling could make her vulnerable to open-ended liability on any new research she produces.

The case stemmed from the failed attempt by LVMH's controlling shareholder, Bernard Arnault, to acquire Gucci, a Morgan Stanley client. The research that LVMH cited included a view that its Louis Vuitton unit had reached "maturity." Unlike some of the notorious abuses that inspired the Spitzer settlement in the U.S., LVMH produced no evidence to show that Morgan Stanley had coerced Kent to write negative opinions. Instead, LVMH relied on the fact that the U.S. research settlement signed by Morgan Stanley had shown that conflicts of interest exist at investment banks. The firm, the French ruling said, "was a source of prejudice for its clients and investors."

Any litigation that has the effect of muzzling analysts risks curbing the flow of information and distorting markets, says Smith Barney Citigroup research chief Andrew Pitt, who had to deal with the Sodexho challenge. "Is it in the interest of corporate clients to have this happen?" he asks.

"Analysts have to have real independence," says Philippe Sanlaville, head of equities at French brokerage house Exane. "They must have the right to make an honest mistake."

>>点击此处查看整个2004年全欧洲的研究团队排名。

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The ranking was compiled by Institutional Investor under the direction of Assistant Managing Editor for Research Lewis Knox and Senior Editor Jane B. Kenney with Senior Associate Editor Tucker Ewing. European Editor Tom Buerkle wrote the overview. Contributing Editors Ben Mattlin, Scott McMurray and Mike Sisk and Contributors Pam Abramowitz, Robert Kapler, Rochelle Kass, Leslie Kramer, Suzanne Lorge, Scott Martin, Craig McGuire, Nina Mehta, Michael Rudnick and Paul Sweeney wrote the sector reports that follow.