NatWest Securities tops rankings

NatWest Securities virtually swept the board yesterday at the Reuters rankings for the best City stockbrokers. The investment banking arm of NatWest Group won four of the five awards, maintaining its lead from last year as the best overall broking house in all sectors, as judged by leading fund managers and the finance directors of big UK business.

NatWest Securities was voted the best broker research, best broker execution, and its oil team as best overall sector team.

SBC Warburg prevented a clean sweep of the top awards by being voted the best broker sales by fund managers and finance directors. The votes were weighted according to the significance of analysts' sectors and the businesses represented by the fund managers and finance directors.

Having been voted in second place last year by fund managers and finance directors, BZW was the big loser in the 1996 Reuters survey, slipping to the fourth and fifth spots respectively. HSBC James Capel leapfrogged it to take second place for the best broking research as viewed by the 100 largest UK-based institutional investors, and third place in the same category as voted by finance directors of the 350 largest UK companies.

Merrill Lynch was judged second-best broking research house by finance directors.