Capel slips to third in analysts' league table

JAMES CAPEL, for many years the City's undisputed leader in stockbroking research, has slipped to third in the 1992 Extel Financial annual survey of investment analysts.

The 126 fund managers surveyed said for the second year that Warburg Securities provided the best research. There was a surprise in that County NatWest Woodmac, the stockbroking arm of National Westminster Bank, jumped from fifth to second place and was said to have the best specialist sales force.

Capel's decline followed the departure of its well-respected chairman, Peter Quinnen, and attempts by its parent company, Hongkong & Shanghai Banking Corporation, to cut costs in the face of losses at the broker. However, it had an encouraging result with 53 per cent of fund managers saying its research was improving.

Kleinwort Benson, which along with Warburg was said to have the best general sales force, fell two places to fifth and Hoare Govett, the only one of the top 10 firms to be said to have deteriorating research, fell from seventh to eighth.

Barclays de Zoete Wedd, once one of the leaders, failed to improve on last year's sixth place.

Jamie Stevenson, Kleinwort's building materials analyst, was the most highly rated analyst and eight analysts were rated 'all stars', receiving more than 200 votes. Three of these were from Kleinwort, three from Warburg and one each from County and Hoare Govett.

------------------------------------------------------------------------ EXTEL ANALYSTS RESEARCH RANKINGS 1992 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Position Firm Vote Trend in Quality (%) Improving Worsening ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 1 (1) SG Warburg Securities 4,103 77 23 2 (5) County Natwest Woodmac 3,216 89 11 3 (2) James Capel 3,079 53 47 4 (4) UBS Phillips & Drew 2,924 67 33 5 (3) Kleinwort Benson Securities 2,877 73 27 6 (6) Barclays de Zoete Wedd 2,333 59 41 7 (8) Smith New Court 1,876 85 15 8 (7) Hoare Govett 1,354 33 67 9 (9) Goldman Sachs 872 84 16 10 (10) Credit Lyonnais Laing 513 88 12 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Last year's position in brackets ------------------------------------------------------------------------

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