Is Credicorp Ltd. (USA) (BAP) Worth Owning?

We at Insider Monkey have gone over 742 13F filings that hedge funds and prominent investors are required to file by the government. The 13F filings show the funds’ and investors’ portfolio positions as of September 30. In this article, we look at what those funds think of Credicorp Ltd. (USA) (NYSE:BAP) based on that data.

Credicorp Ltd. (USA) (NYSE:BAP) was in 22 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the third quarter of 2016. BAP has experienced an increase in hedge fund interest recently. There were 21 hedge funds in our database with BAP holdings at the end of the previous quarter. At the end of this article we will also compare BAP to other stocks including Parker-Hannifin Corporation (NYSE:PH), Entergy Corporation (NYSE:ETR), and DENTSPLY International Inc. (NASDAQ:XRAY) to get a better sense of its popularity.

Follow Credicorp Ltd (NYSE:BAP)

At Insider Monkey, we’ve developed an investment strategy that has delivered market-beating returns over the past 12 months. Our strategy identifies the 100 best-performing funds of the previous quarter from among the collection of 700+ successful funds that we track in our database, which we accomplish using our returns methodology. We then study the portfolios of those 100 funds using the latest 13F data to uncover the 30 most popular mid-cap stocks (market caps of between $1 billion and $10 billion) among them to hold until the next filing period. This strategy delivered 18% gains over the past 12 months, more than doubling the 8% returns enjoyed by the S&P 500 ETFs.

Biggest Financial Scandals in History

PathDoc/Shutterstock.com

What does the smart money think about Credicorp Ltd. (USA) (NYSE:BAP)?

At Q3’s end, a total of 22 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a 5% uptick from one quarter earlier, the third-straight in which smart money ownership has risen slightly. With hedgies’ positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists an “upper tier” of noteworthy hedge fund managers who were increasing their holdings substantially (or already accumulated large positions).

HedgeFundSentimentChart

When looking at the institutional investors followed by Insider Monkey, Ken Fisher’s Fisher Asset Management has the number one position in Credicorp Ltd. (USA) (NYSE:BAP), worth close to $196.1 million. On Fisher Asset Management’s heels is J Kevin Kenny Jr of Emerging Sovereign Group, with a $68.7 million position; 4.6% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the stock. Remaining professional money managers with similar optimism encompass Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell’s Arrowstreet Capital, Cliff Asness’ AQR Capital Management and David Halpert’s Prince Street Capital Management.

Consequently, some big names were leading the bulls’ herd. Blue Mountain Capital, managed by Andrew Feldstein and Stephen Siderow, created the largest position in Credicorp Ltd. (USA) (NYSE:BAP). Blue Mountain Capital had $2.2 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Mike Vranos’ Ellington also made a $0.6 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The following funds were also among the new BAP investors: Alec Litowitz and Ross Laser’s Magnetar Capital, Jim Simons’ Renaissance Technologies, and Glenn Russell Dubin’s Highbridge Capital Management.

Let’s check out hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Credicorp Ltd. (USA) (NYSE:BAP). These stocks are Parker-Hannifin Corporation (NYSE:PH), Entergy Corporation (NYSE:ETR), DENTSPLY International Inc. (NASDAQ:XRAY), and Henry Schein, Inc. (NASDAQ:HSIC). This group of stocks’ market values are closest to BAP’s market value.

Ticker No of HFs with positions Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) Change in HF Position
PH 27 1331502 -4
ETR 24 852366 1
XRAY 32 1302672 4
HSIC 23 388072 0

As you can see these stocks had an average of 27 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $969 million. That figure was $482 million in BAP’s case. DENTSPLY International Inc. (NASDAQ:XRAY) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Henry Schein, Inc. (NASDAQ:HSIC) is the least popular one with only 23 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks Credicorp Ltd. (USA) (NYSE:BAP) is even less popular than HSIC. Considering that hedge funds aren’t fond of this stock in relation to other companies analyzed in this article, it may be a good idea to analyze it in detail and understand why the smart money isn’t behind this stock. This isn’t necessarily bad news. Although it is possible that hedge funds may think the stock is overpriced and view the stock as a short candidate, they may not be very familiar with the bullish thesis. In either case more research is warranted.

Disclosure: None