Artisan Partners, an investment management company, released its “Artisan Mid Cap Fund” second quarter 2024 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. In the second quarter, the fund’s Investor Class fund ARTMX returned -5.73%, Advisor Class fund APDMX posted a return of -5.67%, and Institutional Class fund APHMX returned -5.64%, compared to a -3.21% return for the Russell Midcap Growth Index. The portfolio generated negative absolute returns and underperformed the index in the second quarter. Modest negative security selection across multiple sectors, including information technology, industrials, communication services, and health care led to the underperformance and was partially offset by outperformance within consumer discretionary. In addition, please check the fund’s top five holdings to know its best picks in 2024.
Artisan Mid Cap Fund highlighted stocks like West Pharmaceutical Services, Inc. (NYSE:WST), in the second quarter 2024 investor letter. West Pharmaceutical Services, Inc. (NYSE:WST) designs, manufactures and sells containment and delivery systems for injectable drugs and healthcare products. The one-month return of West Pharmaceutical Services, Inc. (NYSE:WST) was 2.19%, and its shares lost 14.65% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On July 16, 2024, West Pharmaceutical Services, Inc. (NYSE:WST) stock closed at $329.11 per share with a market capitalization of $24.093 billion.
Artisan Mid Cap Fund stated the following regarding West Pharmaceutical Services, Inc. (NYSE:WST) in its Q2 2024 investor letter:
“Along with Lattice Semiconductor, Celsius and Tyler Technologies, notable adds in the quarter included West Pharmaceutical Services, MACOM and Liberty Formula One. West Pharmaceutical Services, Inc. (NYSE:WST) is a leading packaging components supplier for injectable pharmaceuticals, including rubber stoppers, seals and plungers. We are attracted to the company’s long-term growth drivers, which are fueled by its nearly 100% participation in new biologic drug approvals and a steady shift in demand toward the company’s higher value-add components. However, those tailwinds have been masked in recent years by the rapid growth and decline of COVID-19 vaccines and then by elevated customer inventories of packaging components that were purchased to derisk COVID-related supply chain constraints. Inventory destocking continued to weigh on West’s growth in the quarter, but we believe customer orders support a reacceleration of growth in the second half of 2024. This is in part supported by the company’s capacity expansions in order to support the rapid growth of GLP-1 drugs to treat diabetes and obesity, a category we expect to materially drive growth in the coming years. With the valuation having reached attractive levels, and with profit acceleration likely near, we added to our position.”
A closeup of multiple drug containment systems in an array of colors.
West Pharmaceutical Services, Inc. (NYSE:WST) is not on our list of 31 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 46 hedge fund portfolios held West Pharmaceutical Services, Inc. (NYSE:WST) at the end of the first quarter which was 42 in the previous quarter. In the first quarter, as expected, West Pharmaceutical Services, Inc. (NYSE:WST) experienced a low single-digit decrease in organic sales, a decline in operating profit, and diluted EPS. The company reported net sales of $695.4 million in the quarter, down 3% year over year. While we acknowledge the potential of West Pharmaceutical Services, Inc. (NYSE:WST) 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 West Pharmaceutical Services, Inc. (NYSE:WST) and shared the list of best dividend aristocrats stocks according to analysts. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q2 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.
