Brazilian companies dominate the 2015 Latin America Executive Team — Institutional Investor’s exclusive annual ranking of the region’s corporate leaders as seen through the eyes of investment professionals — having captured the top six spots on the roster.
The top six of the list were:
1. Vale, a diversified mining conglomerate;
2. Cielo, a credit card payments processor;
3. Kroton Educacional, a provider of educational services;
4. Ultrapar Participações, a fuel distributor and specialty chemicals manufacturer;
5. Itaú Unibanco Holding, the largest financial conglomerate in Latin America; and
6. Localiza Rent a Car.
The highest-ranked company not headquartered in Brazil is Mexico’s Cemex, a building materials manufacturer, which placed seventh.
Institutional Investor asked portfolio managers and sell-side analysts to name the best CEOs, chief financial officers and investor relations professionals at the Latin American companies they cover and to evaluate these businesses on their performance in each of eight categories. Buy- and sell-side responses were tabulated separately to produce two distinct rankings for each of the four categories.
Survey results reflect the opinions of 535 buy-side analysts and money managers at more than 290 institutions that collectively manage an estimated $267 billion in Latin American equities and of 345 sell-side researchers at close to 50 firms.
