Baron Funds, an asset management company, released its “Baron Discovery Fund” second quarter 2022 investor letter. A copy of the same can be downloaded here. The fund was down 22.66% in the second quarter, 3.41% below its benchmark index, the Russell 2000 Growth Index. The firm focuses more on secular growth stories instead of cyclical companies. In addition, you can check the top 5 holdings of the fund to know its best picks in 2022.
Baron Funds discussed stocks like ASGN Incorporated (NYSE:ASGN) in the second quarter investor letter. Based in Glen Allen, Virginia, ASGN Incorporated (NYSE:ASGN) is an IT services and solutions providing company. On September 9, 2022, ASGN Incorporated (NYSE:ASGN) stock closed at $97.57 per share. One-month return of ASGN Incorporated (NYSE:ASGN) was -8.38% and its shares lost 13.46% of their value over the last 52 weeks. ASGN Incorporated (NYSE:ASGN) has a market capitalization of $4.898 billion.
Here is what Baron Funds specifically said about ASGN Incorporated (NYSE:ASGN) in its Q2 2022 investor letter:
“ASGN Incorporated (NYSE:ASGN) is a leading provider of IT staffing and consulting services. We expect continued robust demand for ASGN’s solutions given its focus on staffing areas with strong secular growth, chronic shortages of skilled IT workers, and the ongoing digital transformation of U.S. businesses. ASGN is better insulated from economic headwinds than traditional staffing providers given its significant exposure to more stable, counter-cyclical government work and the mission-critical nature of its IT infrastructure work and longer-term consulting engagements.
Management is not seeing any change in tone from its clients, demand remains strong, and pipeline growth is still accelerating. Wage inflation is being offset by higher billing rates, which are being successfully passed through to customers. ASGN is rapidly expanding its solution capabilities, which in turn expands the scope of work for which it can compete and presents new cross-selling opportunities. The company is tracking ahead of its three-year $6 billion revenue target (including $4.9 billion organic revenue growth) which was set just this past September.
We believe investors do not appreciate ASGN’s differentiated positioning and remain optimistic about the outlook for the company. Trading at around 8.5 times 2023 adjusted cash flow, we think the shares are incredibly cheap.”
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ASGN Incorporated (NYSE:ASGN) is not on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 19 hedge fund portfolios held ASGN Incorporated (NYSE:ASGN) at the end of the second quarter which was 12 in the previous quarter.
We discussed ASGN Incorporated (NYSE:ASGN) in another article and shared Baron Funds’ views on the company. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q2 2022 page for more investor letters from hedge funds and other leading investors.
Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.
