Alphyn Capital Management, an investment management firm, released its third-quarter 2024 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. The Master Account of the fund returned 8.9% net in the third quarter compared to 5.9% for the S&P500 Index. As of September 30, 2024, the top ten holdings accounted for approximately 71% of the portfolio, and approximately 9% of the portfolio was held in cash. In addition, please check the fund’s top five holdings to know its best picks in 2024.
Alphyn Capital Management highlighted stocks like Cogent Communications Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:CCOI), in the third quarter 2024 investor letter. Cogent Communications Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:CCOI) provides high-speed Internet access, private network, and data center colocation space services. The one-month return of Cogent Communications Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:CCOI) was 12.76%, and its shares gained 28.59% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On October 9, 2024, Cogent Communications Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:CCOI) stock closed at $81.14 per share with a market capitalization of $3.976 billion.
Alphyn Capital Management stated the following regarding Cogent Communications Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:CCOI) in its Q3 2024 investor letter:
“In its latest earnings release, Cogent Communications Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:CCOI) reported steady, albeit unspectacular, performance in its core operations. There has been some progress on extracting cost synergies from the Sprint acquisition, and there is some potential for value creation through monetizing “hidden assets” from its IPv4 and data center co-location fees. The company has made progress in realizing cost synergies from the spring acquisition and may unlock additional value by monetizing “hidden assets” such as its IPv4 holdings and data center co-location fees. However, the crux of the investment thesis remains the potential for significant revenue growth from waves. Without this catalyst, I believe the stock could drop to the low $60s, but with waves revenues materializing, the upside potential could exceed $150.
It is interesting to see what happened with Lumen, a competitor to Cogent, after announcing a $5 billion deal to build a custom network for Microsoft’s data centers on July 24th. The stock jumped from around $1.50 to approximately $7 per share. From my understanding and based on reading a short seller report,2 Lumen is primarily acting as a contractor in this deal, and it is estimated to retain only $800 million in one-time profits from construction and only $21 million in recurring profits.
In contrast, Cogent has the potential to generate over $500 million in recurring operating profits3 if it can successfully sell its wave revenues over the next few years. The capital expenditure is much more limited, as Cogent is connecting an existing infrastructure that all its customers can use instead of a bespoke construction for just one customer. While I don’t expect the same dramatic market reaction as Lumen’s, Lumen’s stock rally was partly due to relief from its potential bankruptcy risk as the influx of cash will help manage its substantial $18 billion debt; I do think this situation reflects the market’s appetite for companies providing infrastructure critical to AI and cloud development.”
An aerial view of an internet exchange point, illustrating the importance of an online service provider.
Cogent Communications Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:CCOI) is not on our list of 31 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 22 hedge fund portfolios held Cogent Communications Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:CCOI) at the end of the second quarter which was 21 in the previous quarter. In the second quarter, Cogent Communications Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:CCOI) reported $260.4 million in revenues. While we acknowledge the potential of Cogent Communications Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:CCOI) as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns, and doing so within a shorter timeframe. If you are looking for an AI stock that is as promising as NVIDIA but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.
In another article, we discussed Cogent Communications Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:CCOI) and shared Alphyn Capital Management’s views on the company in the previous quarter. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q3 2024 page for more investor letters from hedge funds and other leading investors.
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Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.