The winners of the 45th annual Financial Mail Top Analyst awards were announced online on 25 May 2021. The Financial Mail, in association with Iress and the JSE, recognises South Africa’s top analysts in the institutional stock broking industry. Forty research and six non-research categories were assessed to determine the past year’s top performers, with 378 sell-side analyst nominations and 131 buy-side nominations received.
The Financial Mail Top Analyst is the only survey in South Africa that provides a reliable and independent ranking of skills in the industry. The research, which is conducted by Intellidex, is estimated to cover 90% of the institutional stock broking market through confidential questionnaires completed by their domestic institutional clients.
For the sixth consecutive year, Standard Bank SBG Securities was awarded as the Overall Top Firm, while also reclaiming the number one ranking as Top firm – Execution: Fixed Interest Securities.
For the fourth straight year, RMB Morgan Stanley maintained its ranking as the Top firm – Execution: Equities Dealing, while again claiming top spot in the Corporate Access, Administration, and Sales Team categories.
Peresec was awarded as the Top firm – Derivatives.
The Young Analyst awards were adjudicated by the CFA, with twelve entries received across nine firms. Keamogetse Konopi from Standard Bank SBG Securities was announced as the Young Analyst of the Year: Equities for research on ‘Transaction Capital — Life’s certainties: debt and taxes’. Reezwana Sumad of Nedgroup Securities won the Young Analyst of the Year: Non-equities category for the research theme ‘Budget Preview: Yield sensitivity to a deteriorating fiscus.’
Noah Capital Markets is the top Small Black Broker for the second year in a row. Eleven brokerages qualified for this category by meeting the criteria of being more than 50% black-owned with a minimum level 2 B-BBEE rating, and top line revenue that does not exceed R100m.
A special report on the 2021 research findings will be published in the Financial Mail on Thursday, 27 May 2021.