1. First Citizens BancShares Inc (Delaware) Class A (NASDAQ:FCNCA)
Number of Hedge Fund Investors: 46
First Citizens BancShares Inc (Delaware) Class A (NASDAQ:FCNCA) last year upped its dividend by a whopping 118% while First Citizens BancShares Inc (Delaware) Class A (NASDAQ:FCNCA) saw revenue growth of 111% during the third quarter on a year-over-year basis. In October, Wedbush analyst David Chiaverini started covering the stock with an Outperform rating.
Gator Capital Management made the following comment about First Citizens BancShares, Inc. (NASDAQ:FCNCA) in its Q3 2023 investor letter:
“The Fund’s largest position is First Citizens BancShares, Inc. (NASDAQ:FCNCA) (“First Citizens” or “FCNCA”). We acquired our stake over the past three years. Initially, we owned and traded around a small position in CIT Group Inc. (“CIT”) during the summer of 2020. We felt CIT was undervalued and management was making progress in reducing risk during the Covid-19 pandemic. In late 2020, CIT agreed to be acquired by First Citizens. We added to our CIT stake the morning of the acquisition announcement because we thought the acquisition was so financially attractive that First Citizens’ shares would rally and pull CIT’s shares higher. Our CIT shares were exchanged for First Citizens shares when the merger completed. We held onto our First Citizens shares because we admired the management team, we felt the bank was undervalued, and we projected the bank would benefit from higher interest rates. Then, earlier this year, First Citizens was the winning bidder in the FDIC’s auction of the failed Silicon Valley Bank (“SVB”). We added significantly to the Fund’s First Citizens position on the following Monday morning because the deal was unbelievably favorable for First Citizens.
First Citizens’s stock price rose more than 50% that day and has risen another 40% in the months since the SVB acquisition. We have not sold any shares. We believe the stock still has the potential to double over the next three years. Despite this attractive upside, we think the downside is minimal. Our downside scenario is an unchanged stock price in three years…” (Click here to read the full text)
A total of 36 hedge funds out of the 910 funds in Insider Monkey’s database had stakes in First Citizens BancShares Inc (Delaware) Class A (NASDAQ:FCNCA). The biggest stake in First Citizens BancShares Inc (Delaware) Class A (NASDAQ:FCNCA) is owned by Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group which owns a $186 million stake in First Citizens BancShares Inc (Delaware) Class A (NASDAQ:FCNCA).
Insider Monkey focuses on uncovering the best investment ideas of hedge funds and insiders. Please subscribe to our free daily e-newsletter to get the latest investment ideas from hedge funds’ investor letters by entering your email address below. You can also look at the 11 High Growth Low Debt Stocks to Buy and the 12 High Growth International Stocks to Buy.
