Revealed: the best fixed income research

After polling the top 100 fund management firms investing in Asian credits, the results of FinanceAsia's fifth annual fixed income research poll are in, and the results show some astounding changes at the top.

Last year, it will be recalled, the Merrill Lynch-Chris Francis machine dominated our poll, topping four out of six categories. Merrill lost out in High Yield, where CSFB dominated, and in Bank credits. This year, Abdul Hussain's second-ranked CSFB team held the top place in High Yield, but Merrill must come to grips with the fact that it has lost the top slot in three categories (Sovereign research, Strategy, and Macroeconomic research). Merrill's Jason Carley and team retain the top slot in Investment Grade research.

Indeed, this year's poll demonstrates an incredible fragmentation in the market, with no single house dominating as Merrill did in the past. Damien Wood and his team at ING Barings claim the top spot in Bank credit research, while Greg Batey and Bernhard Eschweiler of JPMorgan claim Macroeconomic research. John Woods of HSBC and his team claim top place in fixed income and credit strategy, and came joint-top with Citibank Solly's Ivan Lee/ Steve Taran and team for Sovereign research.

And it wasn't just Merrill that showed slippage. Primary markets powerhouse, Goldman Sachs has given ground (see link at bottom to last year's result), as has Morgan Stanley.

And when it came to persistent all-round performance throughout all six categories the overall winner was the flow-machine, Deutsche Bank. Without winning any single category, it nevertheless came near the top in virtually every category and thus was victorious overall (see methodology bottom).

Meanwhile, another consistent performer was UBS Warburg. Again, while it did not win any of the six categories, its fixed income research head, Stephen Cheng ran away with the award for Best Fixed Income Analyst.

In another interesting result, investors have changed their views dramatically about online bond trading. In the midst of the internet euphoria last year, 60% thought they would use an online bond trading portal in the coming 12 months. This time the number had slipped to 34%, with only 15.5% saying they were 'very likely' to use a BondsinAsia or asiabondportal in the next year.

Below are the full results:

Best overall in Fixed Income Research

Best Asian Regional Macroeconomic Research

Best in Asian Bank and Financial Sector Credits

Best on Asian Investment Grade Credits

Best on Asian High Yield/ Distressed Credits

Best Research on Asian Sovereign Credits

Best Asian Fixed Income and Credit Strategy

Best analyst

How likely are you to use online bond portals in the next 12 months?

Name the international credit rating agency whose research and rating actions most strongly influence your investment decisions in Asia

What is your preferred way of receiving research?

Methodology:

We sent the poll by email to fund managers investing in Asian credits from around the globe. After three weeks of polling, we received 117 responses from over 100 fund management houses. In some cases more than one fund manager from a particular firm voted.

Fund managers were asked to vote in all categories and were able to vote for "all banks that apply". Thus, for example, if a fund manager thought that Bank A and Bank B were excellent in Sovereign research they could click on both and both banks would get one point each.

The only difference to this methodology applied in the 'Best Analyst' category where we asked for the best candidate. If a voter put more than one analyst down we divided the point accordingly eg if two were named, each got 0.5, if three, each got 0.33 and so forth.

Please note that while all 117 voters expressed a preference in all six house categories, a large number left the 'Best Analyst' category blank. We deduce that they only voted for a particular analyst if they really liked the analyst in question.

For a full list of the fund management firms that participated, see the full results in the November issue of FinanceAsia Magazine.