Baron Funds, an investment management company, released its “Baron Discovery Fund” fourth quarter 2024 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. In the fourth quarter, the fund appreciated 6.20% (Institutional Shares), outperforming the 4.50% return for the Russell 2000 Growth Index. For the year ended December 31, 2024, the fund returned 16.28% compared to the index’s 15.15% return. Given the challenging start in the first half of the year, the fund was pleased with the outperformance of the fund in 2024. In addition, please check the fund’s top five holdings to know its best picks in 2024.
Baron Discovery Fund highlighted stocks like PAR Technology Corporation (NYSE:PAR) in the fourth quarter 2024 investor letter. PAR Technology Corporation (NYSE:PAR) offers omnichannel cloud-based hardware and software solutions to the restaurant and retail industries. The one-month return of PAR Technology Corporation (NYSE:PAR) was -4.87%, and its shares gained 45.74% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On January 22, 2024, PAR Technology Corporation (NYSE:PAR) stock closed at $ 72.01 per share with a market capitalization of $2.69 billion.
Baron Discovery Fund stated the following regarding PAR Technology Corporation (NYSE:PAR) in its Q4 2024 investor letter:
“PAR Technology Corporation (NYSE:PAR) is a leading software, hardware, and service provider to the restaurant industry. Shares of PAR rose during the quarter as it continued to deliver strong growth while reporting its first quarter of adjusted cash flow (EBITDA) profitability since embarking on its current strategy. The restaurant industry historically underinvested in technology, and PAR is building an all-in-one platform for enterprise restaurants to run the most critical portions of their technology stacks. PAR remains well positioned given limited competition, accelerating restaurant adoption of technology, and best-of-breed products. We believe PAR will deliver on its greater than 20% software revenue growth target for the next several years with possible significant upside if PAR closes some of its potential large customer deals. We further believe EBITDA margins will rapidly scale from this first profitable quarter as the company has maintained strong cost controls coincident with its growth. The company’s recent TASK and Stuzo acquisitions further strengthen the long-term opportunity as well, allowing for expansion into convenience stores and international markets and opening up opportunities with additional Tier 1 restaurants.”
An engineer working in a tech lab, surrounded by tools and components.
PAR Technology Corporation (NYSE:PAR) is not on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 24 hedge fund portfolios held PAR Technology Corporation (NYSE:PAR) at the end of the third quarter which was 19 in the previous quarter. In the September quarter, PAR Technology Corporation (NYSE:PAR) reported $96.8 million in revenues, representing 41% year-over-year growth. While we acknowledge the potential of PAR Technology Corporation (NYSE:PAR) 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 PAR Technology Corporation (NYSE:PAR) and shared Laughing Water Capita’s views on the company. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q3 2024 page for more investor letters from hedge funds and other leading investors.
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Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.