Is Signature Bank (SBNY) A Great Investment Choice?

Alger, an investment management firm, published its “Alger Weatherbie Specialized Growth Fund” fourth quarter 2021 investor letter – a copy of which can be downloaded here. During the fourth quarter, the largest portfolio sector weightings were Information Technology and Health Care. The largest sector overweight was Financials. The portfolio had no exposure to the Consumer Staples or utility sectors and negligible exposure to Communication Services. Spare some time to check the fund’s top 5 holdings to have a clue about their top bets for 2022.

Alger Weatherbie Specialized Growth Fund, in its Q4 2021 investor letter, mentioned Signature Bank (NASDAQ: SBNY) and discussed its stance on the firm. Signature Bank is a New York, New York-based commercial banking company with an $18.5 billion market capitalization. SBNY delivered a -5.54% return since the beginning of the year, while its 12-month returns are up by 91.74%. The stock closed at $305.54 per share on January 26, 2022.

Here is what Alger Weatherbie Specialized Growth Fund has to say about Signature Bank in its Q4 2021 investor letter:

“Signature Bank provides business and personal banking products and services, including deposit products such as commercial checking accounts, money market accounts, escrow deposit accounts and cash concentration accounts. The company also offers loan products, including commercial and industrial loans, real estate loans and other loan types.

Signature Bank has succeeded in applying its time-tested strategy of growing loans and deposits by expanding into new geographic areas and business lines. In October, Signature Bank reported earnings per share of $3.88 for the third quarter of 2021 compared to publicly available Wall Street estimates of $3.72. This outperformance was driven by strong balance sheet growth, higher fee income and lower-than-expected loan loss provisions. Deposit growth was very strong with total deposits increasing by approximately $10 billion in the quarter. This was the secondstrongest quarter in the company’s history trailing only the second quarter of this year). Total loan growth was also very strong, increasing approximately 7.5% from the second quarter.”

Our calculations show that Signature Bank (NASDAQ: SBNY) failed to obtain a mark on our list of the 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. SBNY was in 46 hedge fund portfolios at the end of the third quarter of 2021, compared to 43 funds in the previous quarter. Signature Bank (NASDAQ: SBNY) delivered a 3.38% return in the past 3 months.

In September 2021, we also shared another hedge fund’s views on SBNY 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.