The Research Firm That Won 2020

未来看着卖方的研究行业严峻。

Commissions were in decline and under pressure from规that had disrupted the old business model. Major research providers were reducing headcount and覆盖范围由于买方客户在交易和外部投资研究中花费了较少的资金。

Then 2020 happened.

As the coronavirus pandemic spread around the globe, freezing up economies and upending all expectations for how markets would behave, investors found themselves with far more questions than answers — and demand for sell-side research skyrocketed.

全年,在每一个市场around the world, top-ranking research professionals interviewed by亚博赞助欧冠据报道，研究报告的读者，分析师和客户之间的互动，以及（现在虚拟）投资者会议和公司访问事件的互相增加。

At UBS Group, for example, analysts “spent more time with clients in 2020 than 2019 by a significant percentage,” said Dan Dowd, global head of research, in a phone interview. “As wild as things were, people wanted to spend even more time with sell-side research — and we provided that to them.”

对于美国银行公司的全球研究负责人，这一年度担任证据，售方研究仍在较大的投资行业中发挥着基本重要的作用。

“I’m actually very optimistic about research,” she said by phone. “You look at a year like this and what happened when we went into a huge period of uncertainty. It shows that people want research; they need it; they’re consuming it.”

投资者究竟在哪里，投资者对此必须进行研究？整个2020年进入202年初，II要求投资者在发达国家和新兴收益方面投票给他们最喜欢的研究提供者和固定收入。这些结果介绍了八大重大排名：全美研究团队;全亚洲研究团队;全中国研究团队;全欧洲研究团队;全日历研究团队;新兴欧洲，中东和非洲研究团队;拉丁美洲研究团队;和全球固定收入研究团队。

When all of these votes were added up, one firm emerged as 2020’sTop Global Research Firm: JPMorgan Chase & Co.

With a total of 256 team positions globally — a more than 14 percent increase from 224 positions accumulated in 2019 — JPMorgan reclaimed its position as the No. 1 Global Research Leader, a crown the firmlast held in 2018.

Last year’s champion, BofA Securities, placed second this year with 246 team positions across the eight rankings — an improvement from 234 spots in 2019.

AndCitigroup，去年的3号研究提供商，尽管失去了地面，但仍然拥有162个团队职位的三大排名。All-America Research Team和全球固定收入研究团队。No. 4 UBS and No. 5 Morgan Stanley ranked close behind, with 158 and 152 team positions apiece.

[IIDeep Dive:How the World’s Top Equity Research Firms Used Big Data to Predict an Unpredictable Year]

“I am incredibly proud of this team,” said Marc Badrichani, head of global sales and research at JPMorgan, via email. “During the pandemic, our focus was on delivering timely content and thought leadership in some of the fastest moving and most volatile global markets we’ve seen in the last decade. We faced many of the same challenges that our clients did, but our scale and flexibility allowed us to adapt and engage clients in new ways.”

For example, the JPMorgan executive vice president said analysts adopted virtual meetings and conferences, significantly increased their output of research reports and podcasts, and launched flagship publications and trackers focused on Covid-19.

Likewise, BofA’s Browning reported a 15 percent increase in the amount of published research alongside the transition to online meetings and events, including virtual store and factory tours.

“我们开始发布更多并创造更多事件，”布朗宁说。“客户对所有的变化都感兴趣，所以我们接受了虚拟世界和其他方式来实现客户。”

虽然Covid-19大流行重新创建了对研究需求的飙升，但Browning和Badrichani都指出，卖方公司需要继续发展，以满足客户的需求，因为投资景观继续发生变化。例如，布朗宁指出了大量私人公司，这些公司被推动到公众，创造了更多需要涵盖的股票。与此同时，对客户来说，主题和环境，社会和治理研究继续变得更加重要。

“To be successful, research houses will need to have the intelligence and flexibility to meet evolving needs,” Badrichani added. “It will be critical to have a global perspective, and to be able to look across asset classes and across the capital structure. The use of data will also change — both how we use it to generate content and how our clients consume content.”

While the pandemic endures, however, top research providers are remaining focused on getting both clients and their own staff through a period that has brought immense personal and professional challenges, even as it boosted productivity and engagement.

“I think all of us hope that in 2021 we can get back to some normalcy and actually go back to our offices,” Browning said. “It certainty is a testament to ingenuity and resilience that we got through this as well as we did.”