Investment management company Maran Capital Management recently released its fourth-quarter 2024 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. Maran Partners Fund returned +6.4% net of all fees and expenses in the fourth quarter, which makes the yearly returns +16.0% net. The partnership compounded at a rate greater than 14% annually net, over the past five years, just slightly less than a “five-year double.” In addition, you can check the fund’s top 5 holdings to determine its best picks for 2024.
Maran Capital Management highlighted stocks like APi Group Corporation (NYSE:APG), in the fourth quarter 2024 investor letter. APi Group Corporation (NYSE:APG) is a safety and specialty services provider. The one-month return of APi Group Corporation (NYSE:APG) was 4.34%, and its shares gained 13.23% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On January 29, 2024, APi Group Corporation (NYSE:APG) stock closed at $37.49 per share with a market capitalization of $10.397 billion.
Maran Capital Management stated the following regarding APi Group Corporation (NYSE:APG) in its Q4 2024 investor letter:
“As we look to 2025 and beyond, we have great confidence in the business, our backlog, our balance sheet and our ability to continue to evolve APi into an even lower CapEx asset-light business focused on high-margin statutorily mandated services.” – 3Q 2024 earnings call
We have owned APi Group Corporation (NYSE:APG) for a number of years—since it was a sub-$1 billion-dollar market cap, pink-sheet listed, de-SPAC. It is now a ~$10 billion market cap, ~$1 billion EBITDA, NYSE-listed behemoth (at least by our usual standards), but I still believe it can continue to appreciate from here. APi is a possible long-term, buy-and-build compounder, but it still has some “special situation” characteristics in the form of a few upcoming catalysts.
Managements’ share-based compensation scheme matures at year-end 2026, so they are incentivized to maximize APG’s stock price at that time. The company recently announced that starting in 2025, it will report its HVAC business under the Specialty Services segment, which will allow it to highlight its core Life Safety business as a clean segment. This change will certainly highlight the quality of APi’s “best” segment, but it would also be a logical step if a split of the two major business segments were being planned.
Regardless of whether APi executes a spin of its Specialty Services business, it will lay out strategic initiatives for both segments at an upcoming investor day in NYC. APi Group has made excellent progress on its last multi-year plan, and I’m looking forward to seeing what they will target in the next three-to-five years.”
A team of engineers surveying a construction site in preparation for a new underground infrastructure.
APi Group Corporation (NYSE:APG) is not on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 55 hedge fund portfolios held APi Group Corporation (NYSE:APG) at the end of the third quarter which was 52 in the previous quarter. APi Group Corporation’s (NYSE:APG) third quarter revenue increased 2.4% to $1.83 billion from $1.78 billion in the prior year period. While we acknowledge the potential of APi Group Corporation (NYSE:APG) as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns, and doing so within a shorter timeframe. If you are looking for an AI stock that is as promising as NVIDIA but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.
In another article, we discussed APi Group Corporation (NYSE:APG) and shared long-term stock picks of billionaire Andreas Halvorsen. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q3 2024 page for more investor letters from hedge funds and other leading investors.
READ NEXT: Michael Burry Is Selling These Stocks and A New Dawn Is Coming to US Stocks.
Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.