Merrill Lynch, the US bank, has broken back into the top three providers of European equity research for the first time since 2001, according to this year's Thomson Extel survey.

The bank moved up two places to second, pushing Citigroup's Smith Barney out of the top three. It failed to dent the success of Swiss bank UBS, which was voted the best research house in Europe by fund managers, for the fourth year. UBS also held on to the top prize for trading and execution. Deutsche Bank retained its third place ranking for European research.