We recently published a list of Billionaire Paul Singer’s Top 12 Long-Term Stock Picks. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Uniti Group Inc. (NASDAQ:UNIT) stands against other Billionaire Paul Singer’s long-term stock picks.
The world’s “most feared investor,” Paul Singer, needs no introduction. He has built a reputation on Wall Street for his aggressive and litigious tactics that often generate significant shareholder value. While the 79-year-old billionaire investor is not as flashy or public as other activist investors, he has built a reputation for exploiting weaknesses in various asset classes.
Singer’s initial approach to investing was to target companies and even governments while purchasing extremely distressed debt. Therefore, he is best known as a “vulture capitalist” as a result of this tactic. Since then, he has diversified into a number of investment strategies, such as activist investing, portfolio management, and commodity trading.
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Elliott Management is the investment firm that Singer founded in 1977 with $1.3 million. It has grown to become one of the most successful and feared activist hedge funds, with about $19 billion in portfolio value. The firm serves as the management affiliate for hedge funds Elliott Associates L.P and Elliott International Limited. The firm boasts of an annual average return of 14% since inception. Likewise, it has only lost money in the two years since its inception.
Elliott Associates is one of the most tracked hedge funds and it employs an activist investment strategy. It also acquires significant though minority stakes in underperforming and distressed companies or assets with a view of unlocking long-term value. In addition, the firm strives to influence company management through strategic initiatives such as cost cuts, management changes and business sales to maximize shareholder value.
Singer’s investment firm also purchased distressed sovereign debt from nations like Argentina and Peru in the 1990s. The investments resulted in multi-million dollar repayments following years of legal disputes. In 2016 Singer received a $2.4 billion payout after warring with Argentina’s government over bond payments. A 2018 article in The New Yorker magazine called him a “doomsday investor” for his strategies, including corporate debt plays in companies.
Paul Singer’s investment record speaks for itself. His hedge fund, Elliott Management, returned 5.9% in 2022 as the S&P 500 went down 19%. Nevertheless, the firm underperformed in 2023, turning 4.3% compared to a 24% gain for the S&P 500. The underperformance came as Singer remained cautious amid concerns that The US economy was staring at an “extraordinarily dangerous and confusing period”.
In addition to the high interest rates, the billionaire hedge fund manager raised concerns about the overstretched valuations and prospects of paltry returns in the real estate and financial services sector. Fast forward, the equity market has continued to edge higher in 2024. The S&P 500 is already up by more than 30%, with valuations in various counters getting out of hand.
Nevertheless, macroeconomics shows improvement following the Federal Reserve’s bid to cut interest rates and steer the economy into a soft landing. As the Co-Chief Executive Officer and Co-Chief Investment Officer of Elliott Management, Singer has diversified his holdings as one of the ways of shrugging heightened volatility.
Consequently, billionaire Paul Singer’s top 12 long-term stock picks are spread across the basic materials, services and utilities segments. There are also healthcare, energy, and financial services holdings.
Our Methodology
To make the list of billionaire Paul Singer’s top 12 long-term stock picks, we scanned Elliott Management’s investment portfolio. We then settled on stocks the hedge fund has held for two years and more. Finally, we ranked the stocks in ascending order based on Elliott Management’s stake value.
At Insider Monkey, we are obsessed with the stocks that hedge funds pile into. The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletter’s strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 275% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 150 percentage points (see more details here).
Aerial view of a communication site, showing the breadth of the company’s real estate portfolio.
Uniti Group Inc. (NASDAQ:UNIT)
Elliott Management’s Stake Value: $57.08 Million
Elliott Management First Major Purchase: 2017
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 31
Uniti Group Inc. (NASDAQ:UNIT) operates as a real estate investment trust focused on acquiring and constructing mission-critical communication infrastructure. It is also a leading provider of fibre and other wireless solutions for the communication industry. While the stock is up by about 2.21% for the year, underperforming the overall market, it has had to navigate a challenging market environment.
The high interest rate environment has been unfavorable for the real estate sector. It has affected the number of deals companies can close owing to high mortgage rates and reduced consumer purchasing power. Nevertheless, Uniti Group Inc. (NASDAQ:UNIT) has remained resilient, going by the solid third-quarter results delivered on October 31, 2024.
Revenues in the quarter totaled $292 million, which was helped by a 3% growth in the strategic fibre business. Net income in the quarter totaled $11.9 million as AFFO attributable to shareholders came in at $87.1 million. The better-than-expected third-quarter results came as Uniti Group Inc. (NASDAQ:UNIT) continues to experience solid demand for its mission-critical fibre infrastructure with consolidated bookings of $1 million.
Uniti Group Inc. (NASDAQ:UNIT) is concentrating on increasing its fibre coverage and taking advantage of the expanding broadband market in light of the threefold increase in bookings from fibre-to-the-home carriers and the substantial demand from hyperscalers. The planned merger with Windstream is proceeding as planned and is expected to strengthen its position as a market leader in the fibre business.
Overall, UNIT ranks 5th on our list of Billionaire Paul Singer’s long-term stock picks. While we acknowledge the potential of UNIT, our conviction lies in the belief that under the radar AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns, and doing so within a shorter time frame. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than UNIT but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.
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Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.
