Davis Funds, an investment management firm, published its “Davis Global Fund” fourth quarter 2021 investor letter – a copy of which can be downloaded here. After outperforming for the previous five-, 10- and 15-year periods, Davis Global Fund underperformed in 2021. As a result, the earnings of Davis Global Fund portfolio companies have grown at 23.2% compared to the index at 16.8%, yet are selling at a significant discount, 9.1x vs. 18.9x. For the year 2021, Davis Global Fund returned −5.09%, compared with an 18.54% return for the MSCI ACWI (All Country World Index), an underperformance of 23.63%. Entering the year, Davis Global Fund had generated solid outperformance relative to the MSCI ACWI (All Country World Index) over five-, 10- and 15-year periods. Spare some time to check the fund’s top 5 holdings to have a clue about their top bets for 2022.
Davis Global Fund, in its Q4 2021 investor letter, mentioned Viatris Inc. (NASDAQ:VTRS) and discussed its stance on the firm. Founded in 1983, Viatris Inc. (NASDAQ:VTRS) is a Canonsburg, Pennsylvania-based global pharmaceutical company with a $12.6 billion market capitalization, and is currently spearheaded by its CEO, Michael Goettler. Viatris Inc. (NASDAQ:VTRS) delivered a -23.21% return since the beginning of the year, while its 12-month returns are up by -31.10%. The stock closed at $10.39 per share on March 16, 2022.
Here is what Davis Global Fund has to say about Viatris Inc. (NASDAQ:VTRS) in its Q4 2021 investor letter:
“Davis Global Fund added several new positions over the past year, including the pharmaceutical Viatris. Viatris is an unloved global pharmaceutical manufacturer created through the merger of Mylan and Upjohn (Pfizer’s off-patent drugs business). The company is highly diversified, with leading positions across a wide span of generic and specialty/partnered drugs in many countries around the world. While growth for the portfolio overall is moderated by pricing pressures in traditional generics, Viatris has an attractive pipeline of complex drugs (e.g., inhaled drugs, injectables, etc.) and biosimilars, the latter of which are poised to see growth in the years ahead after a long period of regulatory and legal deadlock in the U.S.
Near-term, Viatris is committed to using free cash flow to pay down debt, but we believe its extremely cheap valuation (4–5x owner earnings) and growing cash generation offers a compelling risk/reward proposition that should eventually be recognized by the market.”
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Our calculations show that Viatris Inc. (NASDAQ:VTRS) failed to obtain a mark on our list of the 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. Viatris Inc. (NASDAQ:VTRS) was in 58 hedge fund portfolios at the end of the fourth quarter of 2021, compared to 55 funds in the previous quarter. Viatris Inc. (NASDAQ:VTRS) delivered a -18.12% return in the past 3 months.
In December 2021, we also shared another hedge fund’s views on Viatris Inc. (NASDAQ:VTRS) in another article. You can find other letters from hedge funds and prominent investors on our hedge fund investor letters 2021 Q4 page.
Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.
