Longleaf Partners, managed by Southeastern Asset Management, released its “Partners Fund” fourth quarter 2024 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. The fund returned -1.33% in the fourth quarter, compared to the S&P 500’s 2.41% return and Russell 1000 Value’s -1.98% return. For the year the fund returned 8.80% compared to 25.02% and 14.37% returns for the indexes. For more information on the fund’s best picks in 2024, please check its top five holdings.
Longleaf Partners Fund highlighted stocks like IAC Inc. (NASDAQ:IAC), in the fourth quarter 2024 investor letter. IAC Inc. (NASDAQ:IAC) is a media and internet company. The one-month return of IAC Inc. (NASDAQ:IAC) was 0.12%, and its shares lost 17.17% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On January 28, 2024, IAC Inc. (NASDAQ:IAC) stock closed at $42.66 per share with a market capitalization of $3.68 billion.
Longleaf Partners Fund stated the following regarding IAC Inc. (NASDAQ:IAC) in its Q4 2024 investor letter:
“IAC Inc. (NASDAQ:IAC) – Digital holding company IAC was a top detractor for the quarter and year. Operationally, the company delivered strong results, with the key Dotdash Meredith segment achieving accelerating double-digit cash flow growth as the year progressed. Unfortunately, IAC’s stock price remains overly influenced by Angi’s stock price performance, despite Angi representing only a single-digit percentage of IAC’s overall value. This will change this year, however, as in the fourth quarter IAC announced the spin-off of its ownership of Angi. The market took this to mean more short-term stock price pressure for both companies, but we think Angi without the IAC overhang will ultimately trade better, and IAC without Angi will allow the market to focus on high-quality assets like Dotdash Meredith and MGM (discussed above). IAC is also closer to recognizing the value of its other assets, like Care.com and Turo. With a net cash balance sheet at the parent level, IAC is well positioned to go on offense in any market environment and will likely provide more capital allocation clarity in 2025 post-spin of Angi.”
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IAC Inc. (NASDAQ:IAC) is not on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 50 hedge fund portfolios held IAC Inc. (NASDAQ:IAC) at the end of the third quarter which was 42 in the previous quarter. While we acknowledge the potential of IAC Inc. (NASDAQ:IAC) 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 IAC Inc. (NASDAQ:IAC) and shared long term stock picks of billionaire Mason Hawkins. IAC Inc. (NASDAQ:IAC) negatively impacted the Patient Capital Management’s performance in Q4 following the announcement of a potential spin-off of its remaining stake in Angi Inc. (ANGI). 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.