Black Bear Value Partners, an investment management firm, published its first-quarter 2022 investor letter – a copy of which can be downloaded here. A quarterly portfolio return of +1.6% was recorded by the fund for the first quarter of 2022 increasing its year-to-date return to +1.9%. Meanwhile, its benchmarks, the S&P 500 and HFRI Index delivered a +3.7% and +0.2% returns respectively for the same period. Try to spend some time taking a look at the fund’s top 5 holdings to be informed about their best picks for 2022.
In its Q1 2022 investor letter, Black Bear Value Fund mentioned Asbury Automotive Group, Inc. (NYSE:ABG) and explained its insights for the company. Founded in 1995, Asbury Automotive Group, Inc. (NYSE:ABG) is a Duluth, Georgia-based automotive retail company with a $3.5 billion market capitalization. Asbury Automotive Group, Inc. (NYSE:ABG) delivered a -10.14% return since the beginning of the year, while its 12-month returns are down by -26.02%. The stock closed at $155.21 per share on April 13, 2022.
Here is what Black Bear Value Fund has to say about Asbury Automotive Group, Inc. (NYSE:ABG) in its Q1 2022 investor letter:
“Asbury has many similar qualities to AutoNation, which we held for the last 5+ years. I don’t typically discuss portfolio activity but given the long-holding and likely questions, I figured I’d address the change in our holdings here.
While I admire the AutoNation business there has been a management change and an accompanying change in strategic and capital allocation priorities. It was painful to sell the business as it had been one of our core investments and I believed they were on a great track. Management’s strategy may wind up being successful, but it is different than what I underwrote and as a result a change was needed for our portfolio. I express my thanks to the team at AutoNation as our Partnership has benefited from your stewardship.
Asbury had been in the portfolio before. Entering COVID, I decided to concentrate our auto dealer investments into AutoNation. ABG is run by highly capable management who have made 2 accretive and sizeable acquisitions in the past 18 months. The fundamentals of both businesses are similar though there are some differences of note…” (Click here to see the full text)
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Our calculations show that Asbury Automotive Group, Inc. (NYSE:ABG) fell short and didn’t make it on our list of the 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. Asbury Automotive Group, Inc. (NYSE:ABG) was in 32 hedge fund portfolios at the end of the first quarter of 2022, compared to 22 funds in the previous quarter. Asbury Automotive Group, Inc. (NYSE:ABG) delivered a -6.91% return in the past 3 months.
Earlier this month, we published an article that includes Asbury Automotive Group, Inc. (NYSE:ABG) in another article. You can find other investor letters from hedge funds and prominent investors on our hedge fund investor letters 2022 Q1 page.
Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.
