2. Fastenal Company (NASDAQ:FAST)
Motley Fool Asset Management’s Stake Value: $24,748,000
Dividend Yield as of June 17: 2.56%
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 29
Fastenal Company (NASDAQ:FAST) is an American company that provides supply chain management solutions to its consumers. The company saw a 23.5% year-over-year sales growth in May at $589.2 million, supported by solid growth in the North American region. In addition to this, the company’s Q1 revenue came in at $1.7 billion, up 20.3% from the same period last year.
Fastenal Company (NASDAQ:FAST) has a long history of dividend payments. The company started paying annual dividends in 1991 and expanded to quarterly dividends in 2011. Moreover, it also paid special dividends to shareholders in 2008, 2012, and 2020. Currently, the company offers a quarterly payout of $0.31 per share, with a yield of 2.56%, recorded on June 17. At the end of Q1 2022, Motley Fool’s investment in Fastenal Company (NASDAQ:FAST) amounted to $24.7 million. The hedge fund brought its position down in the company by 6% during the quarter. The company made up 1.81% of Bryan Hinmon’s portfolio.
The number of hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey owning stakes in Fastenal Company (NASDAQ:FAST) stood at 29, the same as in the previous quarter. The collective value of these stakes is over $1.04 billion, up from $941 million worth of stakes held by hedge funds in Q4 2021. Jack Woodruff, Cliff Asness, and Ken Griffin were some of the company’s major stakeholders in Q1.
Nomadic Value Partners mentioned Fastenal Company (NASDAQ:FAST) in its Q2 2021 investor letter. Here is what the firm has to say:
“In mid-June we completely sold out of Fastenal (FAST). Although we had been using FAST as a source of liquidity for a few months already, it still feels bad to say an official goodbye to such an amazing company. However, we must stay focused on the math and the math concludes a difficult task to get our return hurdle going forward. The last time FAST traded at a forward P/E ratio of 34x (the multiple at our exit), the year was 2012. The company had been growing at 20% per year, and the US was about to embark on a shale oil boom, sustaining a low-teens growth trajectory. Today, FAST’s sales growth could turn anemic as the surge for COVID safety products is waning and heavy construction and resources customers are slow to return. An investor must have an optimistic view towards 5+ years of strong real GDP growth as well as sustained inflation. If one lowers the growth assumption to a more likely outcome, then the implicit bet is that low to negative real interest rates will persist and the forward P/E multiple will stay elevated4. I do not want to make such a strong macro bet as the justification for owning a stock. Fastenal is a cyclical business with a growth model proven to take market share secularly, but the time to buy FAST (the stock) will be when we are in the depths of an industrial recession. Stay tuned.”
