Maison Placements Canada took home top honours in First Coverage's annual performance rankings for Canada, unveiled in the Financial Post today. The firm tracked the best institutional salespeople and their recommendations -- among some 150,000 trade ideas -- to clients such as pension funds and portfolio managers in a variety of categories.
John Ing, president and gold analyst at Maison, also ranked first globally in the Most Consistent Sales Rep category for 2009, second in Top Sales Rep, first in the Basic Materials and Oil & Gas industries, and had the Best Long idea with Teck Resources Ltd.
"Rising tides don't always lift all boats," said Mr. Ing, who was heavily weighted in materials and energy last year.
"While a lot of the golds did well, a lot of them didn't, so stock selection was very important."
Favouring juniors over large-cap stocks, his big winners aren't exactly household names. They include East AsiaMinerals Corp. (EAS/TSXV), Etruscan Resources Inc. (EET/TSX), Exelon Corp. (EXC/ NYSE), Centamin Egypt Ltd. (CEE/TSX), SeaDragon Energy Inc. (SDX/TSX-V) and Delphi Energy Corp. (DEE/TSX).
Recommendations from Nicole Svec-Griffis, senior vice-president of institutional sales at Raymond James, earned the firm second spot in the Canadian rankings. Gary Rubacha, co-head of institutional equity sales at Salman Partners, helped the firm rank third.
First Coverage's Web-based platform tracks all the recommendations that research analysts and sales desks are pitching to portfolio managers. It allows institutional sales teams to highlight their best ideas for the buy side. There are 2,000 sell-side institutional salespeople at more than 300 firms on the platform. They submitted nearly 150,000 actionable trade ideas during 2009.
"Effectively, we are weeding out the better performers versus the weaker ones," said Roland Beaulieu, CEO of First Coverage. "In the end, that's what the institutions are paying for."
He noted research remains very fragmented and there are a lot of independent analysts who don't have sales forces or trading desks, but still want access to institutions.
"It really forces the sell side to align their investment recommendations very closely with a portfolio manager's style and to pull the trigger on when to sell a stock," said Lara Zink, a managing director in the global equities division of RBC Capital Markets.
"It instills discipline in the sell side to monitor the idea, follow it and ensure it is closed when they believe they've maximized return," Ms. Zink said.
Ms. Zink ranked second in the Best Consumer Goods Idea category with a recommendation of dairy product company Saputo Inc. (SAP/TSX) and third for Best Financial Idea by picking a basket that included Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CM/TSX), National Bank of Canada (NA/TSX) and Royal Bank of Canada . The group rose 56% during her three-month recommendation period.
Managing research and getting the most out of it is a difficult task for portfolio managers who often see tens of thousands of reports come into their e-mail inboxes each month. They must also monitor the constant newsflow and stream of telephone calls related to companies, sectors and themes they are interested in.
"I think there is a lot of pressure on portfolio managers and traders to assess ideas that come from the institutional sales teams on a daily basis," Mr. Beaulieu said.
First Coverage allows sell-side firms to establish an accountable track record, while also helping the buy side determine who is the best in each industry and whether the research really provides value.
jratner@nationalpost.com