In the eyes of the world

or the first time this year, the Financial Mail Ranking the Analysts survey includes the opinions of foreign-based fund managers about SA’s institutional brokers.

This is the result of a new partnership between research house Intellidex and WeConvene Extel, the world’s longest running assessment of the European cash equities market.

A total of 78 institutions voted on SA firms in the Extel survey, and 37 of those rank among the top 100 global asset managers.

Their opinions are weighted according to the amount of commission they pay brokers.

Unlike the core Financial Mail survey of domestic institutions, the survey of foreign institutions is coarse-grained and asks for feedback only on firms as a whole, rather than asking for individual sectors or analysts.

The results reveal the overall opinions of foreign institutions on brokers who provide services on the SA financial markets.

The difference in ranking in part reflects slightly different methodologies, but also reflects the firms’ ability to market themselves globally.

FTop-ranked firm JPMorgan ranks only 6th in the eyes of domestic institutions, reflecting its strong international marketing capabilities.

Second-placed Bank of America Merrill Lynch fell outside of the top 10 domestic institutions ranking in part because the firm did not submit analyst names for this year’s research exercise after deciding to focus its efforts on foreign institutions.

Deutsche and UBS hold 3rd and 4th spots as they do in the SA rankings, but the other way around.

A notable achievement is that of SBG Securities, which tops the domestic ranking, and ranks 5th in the view of foreign institutions.

SBG, as part of Standard Bank, is the only SA-owned and operated firm that makes the global list (though 6th-placed Morgan Stanley operates a joint venture with Rand Merchant Bank).