The analysts and sales desks investors love – and those they don’t

afr.com:

Some of the biggest Wall Street investment banks slid down the rankings of high-quality research analysts and sales desks in a widely followed and respected survey of major institutional investors conducted by Peter Lee Associates.

International investment banks like Citi and Bank of America tumbled in categories like the most capable sales professionals in research, the best sales and trading teams and the top quality research products, according to the confidential results circulated to those organisations and obtained by The Australian Financial Review.

Major investment banks were given the findings of this year’s Peter Lee survey late last week. Wolter Peeters

The Peter Lee survey asks the country’s largest institutional investors to rank sell-side equities analysts, sales and trading desks at various banks. Macquarie and Barrenjoey claimed top spots – continuing their dominance – the Financial Review’s Street Talk column reported on Thursday.

Now more details have emerged about the results of the survey, across two metrics. The first is the Top 20 Investors measure, which typically polls the largest institutions, and are often clients of most broker-dealers. The second is calculated on an All Investor Basis – this year Peter Lee surveyed about 100 firms across a swath of the institutional investor community, people familiar with the process said.

Under the top-20 measure, evaluated outcomes of transactions that sales and trading units processed for investors – known as Quality of Agency Executions – saw Bank of America rank 14th this year, down from 12th in 2022. Jefferies ranked 12th, from sixth a year earlier, and UBS fell to seventh from third place, the documents showed.

Barrenjoey, Macquarie and JPMorgan topped