Second win just as sweet for analyst
$660m, where the lead financial advisers were Cameron Partners and Rothschild, and Genesis Energy transactions totalling $585m, where the lead adviser was RBC Capital Markets. This is the second time Stephen Ridgewell has been named as Research Analyst of the Year, but that doesn’t make it any less special for the committed Craigs Investment Partners staffer.
Ridgewell said he was humbled and honoured to have taken the award in a very competitive category.
He said good research was vital in helping people to better understand listed companies and to allocate investment capital. When companies performed strongly, it helped the market grow and encouraged further investment. “Research is an important part of the process.”
Ridgewell said he was particularly proud of calls he had made on two stocks in the past year: Summerset and Trade Me. He had a nonconsensus buy rating on Summerset, whose share price had fallen as low as $4.20 last year but was now trading over $7.
Ridgewell joined Craigs in 2012 from Macquarie and has worked his way up the ranks from senior analyst to his 2016 appointment as deputy head of institutional research, where he covers the technology, healthcare and retirement sectors.
He has been a finalist in the Analyst of the Year category since 2014 and won the award for the first time in 2015.
This time around, the INFINZ judges cited Ridgewell’s 100 per cent commitment to alpha generation and said his major calls with good research backing were spot on. They also commended his meetings, research and models on the sectors he covers.