TIM Group today reported results of the TIM Ideas Top Performer Awards 2012 for North America, identifying the best institutional equity salespeople and their brokerage firms in the region.

• Top Bulge Bracket Brokerage Firm: Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC
• Top Mid-Tier and Boutique Firm: Sanford C. Bernstein & Co., LLC
• Top Salesperson: Lane Stafford of Stephens Inc.

TIM Ideas Top Performer Awards, now in its second year, is the only quantitative ranking of its kind. It is based on the alpha, or outperformance versus relative indexes, of stock trading ideas authored by equity salespeople and sent to their money manager clients via the regulatory compliant TIM Ideas platform. Trade ideas are specific, actionable recommendations, typically based on in-house sell-side research combined with an understanding of market dynamics and timing by the salesperson.

The awards demonstrate consistent outperformance despite last year’s choppy market. "2012 was another challenging year for investors, given the many macro events that impacted the markets. However, our data shows that a number of quality salespeople and their firms dramatically outperformed their benchmarks and peers,” said Colin Berthoud, Co-founder of TIM Group.

For the 2012 ranking, TIM analysed the almost one million long and short equity trading ideas, developed by more than 4,000 equity sales people at over 300 brokerage firms around the world, for more than 350 clients. TIM also issued news releases today announcing the best institutional equity salespeople and their brokerage firms in UK/Europe and in Asia (excluding Japan), Japan, and Australia.

North American Quantitative Summary

• The top ranked brokerage firms (the top 4 bulge bracket and the top 5 mid-tier and boutiques) had an average annualised outperformance of 15.6% above the market, based on an average outperformance per idea of 1.7%.
• All brokers and salespeople in the region produced an annualised outperformance of 10.5% above the market, based on an average outperformance of 1.0% per idea.
• The top 10 salespeople together had an annualised outperformance of 37.0% above the market, based on an average outperformance per idea of 4.7%.
• The top-ranked salesperson Lane Stafford of Stephens Inc. had an annualised outperformance of 25.6% above the market, based on an average outperformance per idea of 9.9%.

TIM also announced top North American brokerage firms for each of 10 different sectors.

Awards Significance

Dominic Vail, Deputy Global Head of Equities Distribution for UBS, commented, “This is an excellent result and demonstrates the geographical breadth of our equities business. The result is testament to our people and the strong relationship between sales and research and the continued drive to add value to our clients' investment process.”

Mr. Berthoud explained that the data generated by the awards demonstrate:

• Alpha: How equity salespeople in North America who understand stocks and markets can generate a significant amount of alpha at a time when correlation is considered to be very high.
• Equity Sales: The changing role equity salespeople are playing at institutional brokerage firms today, providing value added services that help their clients.
• Compliance: How technology can play a key role in both protecting the communication of intellectual property in a regulatory compliant manner.

“While research analysts may get the lion’s share of industry attention, equity salespeople increasingly are the critical link in generating value added commissions by applying their firm’s services and informational resources to the unique style of each institutional client,” Mr. Berthoud said.

Methodology

• Results were based on the alpha generating performance of almost one million long and short equity trading ideas sent to clients via the TIM Ideas platform in 2012.
• Performance was measured by the average return per idea, from the time it was initiated to the time it was closed, versus the performance of the relevant regional or sector benchmarks for that same period.
• Rankings were weighted by consistency of performance and number of ideas generated by each salesperson.
• Regional award benchmarks were S&P 500 for North America, STOXX 600 for Europe, MSCI AC for Asia (ex Japan), TOPIX for Japan and ASX300 for Australia.
• For the sector awards for North American and European brokerage firms, the benchmarks were the relevant MSCI sector benchmarks.
• In order to qualify, an equity salesperson must have sent at least five trade ideas in each quarter of 2012. ETFs and index ideas were excluded.
• For the sector awards, there must have been at least one qualifying contributor. The level of required contribution depended on the sector.
• For the firm level awards, there must have been at least three qualifying authors at the firm to be eligible.
• Authors need to have had a positive average relative return in order to win an award.

TIM Ideas Top Performer Awards: North America

Top Brokerage Firms – Average Annualised Alpha of 15.6% (based on average outperformance per idea of 1.7%)

Top Equity Salespeople – Average Annualised Alpha of 37.0% (based on average outperformance per idea of 4.7%)

Top Brokerage Firms by Sector Specialty

About TIM Group

TIM Group (www.timgroup.com) provides alpha generating information technology, consulting and services to the financial services industry. The company's focus is on helping buy and sell-side firms and administrators maximize their intellectual property to generate more revenue. TIM Group is employee owned with outside venture capital investors that include Commonwealth Capital Ventures of Boston, GrandBanks Capital of Boston, and JLA Ventures of Toronto.