Asiamoney Brokers Poll 2017: Best local - Indonesia

Mandiri Sekuritas is voted this year's best local brokerage, best for overall country research and best for overall sales service in the Asiamoney Brokers Poll in Indonesia. The team is one of the largest in the local market, but Silva Halim, head of institutional equity sales, says it is the quality of the coverage that makes the difference. The team has some 75 years of combined experience of covering local equities.

“Our objective is to be the strongest team in Indonesia,” he says.

The firm conducts regular on-the-ground research surveys across various sectors to avoid over-reliance on third-party publications and data. Mandiri Sekuritas is investing resources more heavily in some sectors, such as banking, which has three dedicated analysts because of the amount of data points to process.

“The size of the team enables us to do detailed analysis of monthly results of all listed banks in Indonesia,” says Adrian Joezer, the firm's head of research. The approach extends to other sectors too, such as construction firms.

“These are not widely covered by the brokers, but we have the capacity to cover them on a monthly basis,” says Joezer. “One focus is government construction projects. Indonesia is lacking infrastructure, but foreign investors only look at government-level budget. We go beyond that because construction companies owned by the government spend as much as the central government.”

The firm took pride in its call on consumer discretionary made in early first quarter for the first half of the year, which saw portfolio returns of 16%.

And with the local clientele well cornered, Mandiri Sekuritas is now enticing foreign clients who are buying Indonesian stocks for the first time.

As for themes for the future, the June 2018 regional elections and the 2019 presidential elections will be the key events to watch.

“These will be political years,” says Halim. “In those, we observe policy tends to benefit the private consumption. Government spending tends to accelerate ahead of the elections in the past, despite the relatively muted private investment. We think this can make consumption improve, so we will play in those sectors.”