Berenberg is increasing its bet on a research-heavy investment banking model, after a dizzying rise in Europe’s equity markets and despite the threat posed by the new Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (Mifid II).
Liable partner Hendrik Riehmer tells Euromoney the German firm will sustain the recent rapid growth of its analyst and sales teams – particularly in the US – and will double its global stocks under coverage in the next five years.
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Hendrik Riehmer, |
“We want to be one of the top 10 investment banks in Europe, and eventually globally, in equities,” Riehmer tells Euromoney. “We are still ramping up. I don’t think that is happening anywhere else.”
The number of stocks Berenberg covers has already risen above 800 this year. In the next five years, Riehmer envisages expanding coverage to about 500 stocks each in the UK and US mid and small-cap markets, as well as 300 in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, and between 300 and 400 large caps. To get there it will need to grow the number of analysts to between 150 and 160, with most of that growth in the US.
The ambition In the US is to emulate mid-cap brokers like Raymond James and Baird – implying a US franchise of about 50 analysts, covering several hundred stocks – just as it has sought to emulate and surpass Numis in the UK.
