Here’s Why ClearBridge Value Equity Strategy Exited The Cigna Group (CI)

ClearBridge Investments, an investment management company, released its “ClearBridge Value Equity Strategy” first quarter 2023 investor letter. A copy of the same can be downloaded here. The strategy outperformed its benchmark, the Russell 1000 Value Index, in the first quarter. The outperformance of the strategy in the quarter was driven by strong stock selection in the communication services and industrials sectors which overcame weakness in the financials sector. In addition, please check the fund’s top five holdings to know its best picks in 2023.

ClearBridge Value Equity Strategy highlighted stocks like The Cigna Group (NYSE:CI) in the first quarter 2023 investor letter. Headquartered in Bloomfield, Connecticut, The Cigna Group (NYSE:CI) provides health services. On July 3, 2023, The Cigna Group (NYSE:CI) stock closed at $280.33 per share. One-month return of The Cigna Group (NYSE:CI) was 6.51%, and its shares gained 5.85% of their value over the last 52 weeks. The Cigna Group (NYSE:CI) has a market capitalization of $82.942 billion.

ClearBridge Value Equity Strategy made the following comment about The Cigna Group (NYSE:CI) in its first quarter 2023 investor letter:

“At the same time, we exited health insurance company The Cigna Group (NYSE:CI), whose strong outperformance over the last year has resulted in shares trading at a significant premium relative to competitor CVS Health. Additionally, we view CVS Health’s underperformance as driven by temporary issues and believe it has a good likelihood of succeeding in its improvement initiatives following upgrades to the management team and its acquisition of Oak Street Health. As a result, we elected to swap our position in Cigna into CVS Health to capitalize on the valuation gap while maintaining similar exposure within the sector.”

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The Cigna Group (NYSE:CI) is not on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 79 hedge fund portfolios held The Cigna Group (NYSE:CI) at the end of first quarter 2023 which was 76 in the previous quarter.

We discussed The Cigna Group (NYSE:CI) in another article and shared the list of biggest health insurance companies in the US. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q1 2023 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.