Heartland Advisors, an investment management firm, published its “Heartland Value Plus Fund” fourth-quarter 2021 investor letter – a copy of which can be seen here. According to the fund, the migration into large-cap companies that started midyear continued during the quarter but shares of smaller businesses still posted solid returns for the period. Stock selection for the portfolio was mixed, and the strategy was up on an absolute basis but modestly lagged its benchmark, the Russell 2000® Value Index. Holdings in Information Technology (IT) and Materials were up on both an absolute and relative but couldn’t overcome weakness in Financials. Holdings in Health Care were down but outperformed the benchmark average for the group. Spare some time to check the fund’s top 5 holdings to have a clue about their top bets for 2022.
Heartland Value Plus Fund, in its Q4 2021 investor letter, mentioned Knowles Corporation (NYSE: KN) and discussed its stance on the firm. Knowles Corporation is an Itasca, Illinois-based micro-acoustic, audio processing, and precision device solutions provider with a $1.9 billion market capitalization. KN delivered a -9.16% return since the beginning of the year, while its 12-month returns are up by 4.38%. The stock closed at $21.21 per share on February 3, 2022.
Here is what Heartland Value Plus Fund has to say about Knowles Corporation in its Q4 2021 investor letter:
“Good to hear. The Fund’s Information Technology (IT) holdings posted a strong quarter and outperformed the benchmark average. Knowles Corp. (KN) is an example of the type of compelling opportunity we hold in the space. The company is a leading maker of microphones and speakers for cell phones and other electronics as well as hearing aids. Earnings have recently come in higher than expected, and management upped their guidance led by growth in the company’s high-margin precision device segment. Additionally, the company announced it was redeeming convertible debt using cash it had on its balance sheet—clearing up an issue that had hung over the stock.
We view the recent strong quarter as a sign of positive things to come for Knowles. Despite the strong performance, shares of the business trade at just 8x estimated 2022 earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization.”
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Our calculations show that Knowles Corporation (NYSE: KN) failed to obtain a mark on our list of the 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. KN was in 19 hedge fund portfolios at the end of the third quarter of 2021, compared to 20 funds in the previous quarter. Knowles Corporation (NYSE: KN) delivered a 0.19% return in the past 3 months.
In December 2021, we also shared another hedge fund’s views on KN 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.
