Where to work if you want to get ahead in Russian equity research, sales and trading

Working in equity research is not what it was. Research firm Greenwich Associates has just completed a story suggesting that in the US at least, equity research spend by institutional investors is falling: it was down 6% year-on-year from the first quarter of 2011 to the first quarter of 2012. It's worse for equity researchers working with hedge funds: hedge funds' spend on research was reportedly down 20% over the same period.

“The role of the analyst is changing from someone who publishes research, to someone who can put an investor in front of company management,” the report's author said.

In Russia, however, published research is still the main deal. And if you want to work in equity research in Russia, it looks a lot like you should be working for VTB.  We say this because VTB has just won Institutional Investor's All Russia research team prize for the second year running. Second was Troika Dialog. Third was Deutsche, fourth was RenCap, fifth was Citi.

Nor was VTB's success limited to research. It also ranked first overall in sales and in trading. 

Here are the local league tables for each:

Russia trading team ranking, 2012

Source: Institutional Investor

Russia sales team ranking, 2012 

 Source: Institutional Investor

Russia research team ranking, 2012

Source: Institutional Investor