Credit Research Poll 1998: Pioneers in their field

SBC Warburg Dillon Read came first overall in Euromoney's trail-blazing European credit-research poll but Merrill Lynch swept the board in individual categories, coming top in 11 out of 13 tables. Other banks that performed well were JP Morgan, which came second, and Deutsche Bank, which came fourth.

The fact that SBC Warburg Dillon Read won the overall poll and Merrill Lynch triumphed in individual sections is explained by the houses' different approaches. SBC takes a global approach to credit research, not identifying with any particular sector and sending its main research product, Credit Advisor containing analysis of North America, Europe and Asia, to a geographical spread of investors.

By contrast, Merrill Lynch, a pioneer of credit research in Europe, began its operations with a geographical split but is gradually moving towards sectoral analysis as practised in the US where credit...