Global Research Group Analyst and Financial Services Portfolio Manager Steve Wharton was one of just nine analysts to make Institutional Investor's industry-wide "Best of the Buy Side" list of the top buy-side analysts.

"[Wharton] does more thorough modeling than other buy-siders," one sell-side analyst told II. The magazine went on to note that "Wharton has an extra incentive to get things right: He's also a portfolio manager...Managing portfolios has helped him become a more effective analyst, Wharton says, because now he 'thinks like an owner.'"

Morgan Stanley Investment Management's inclusion in the survey makes it just one of five firms represented on the list.