Third Avenue Management, an investment management company based in New York City, released its “Small-Cap Value Fund” third quarter 2023 investor letter. A copy of the same can be downloaded here. The fund generated positive results in a challenging market environment in the third quarter. The fund returned 3.88% in Q3 compared to a 2.96% decline for the Russell 2000 Value Index. During the initial nine months of 2023, the fund returned 11.43% compared to a 0.53% drop for the benchmark. In addition, you can check the top 5 holdings of the fund to know its best picks in 2023.
Third Avenue Small-Cap Value Fund highlighted stocks like ProAssurance Corporation (NYSE:PRA) in the third quarter 2023 investor letter. Headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama, ProAssurance Corporation (NYSE:PRA) is a US-based insurance and reinsurance provider. On October 25, 2023, ProAssurance Corporation (NYSE:PRA) stock closed at $17.90 per share. One-month return of ProAssurance Corporation (NYSE:PRA) was -5.04%, and its shares lost 15.09% of their value over the last 52 weeks. ProAssurance Corporation (NYSE:PRA) has a market capitalization of $931.96 million.
Third Avenue Small-Cap Value Fund made the following comment about ProAssurance Corporation (NYSE:PRA) in its Q3 2023 investor letter:
“Casualty insurer, ProAssurance Corporation (NYSE:PRA), weighed on results last quarter after reporting poor first-quarter earnings. It snapped back in the third quarter and rose 25%, as operating performance stabilized.
The Diversity of Drivers chart below depicts a tool we use to help monitor portfolio risks. It supplements the compounder vs. time arb/special situation classifications described earlier. A simple way to distinguish between the two is the former is broken down based on the underlying nature of the businesses, while the latter sorts investments by fluid, near[1]term challenges facing the companies. For example, ProAssurance is a component of the Self-Help category in the Diversity of Drivers chart below, given company-specific challenges, yet is a compounding business over time.
This bucket is comprised of companies in either out-of-favor industries or company-specific challenges. The categories will shift over time. Companies such as ProAssurance are included in the Self-Help bucket and Hamilton Beach is in the Supply Chain bucket. These companies tend to be more volatile and sentiment is overly pessimistic. As described earlier, small operational improvement often results in rapid valuation changes. ProAssurance and Hamilton Beach are perfect examples as both were among the worst-performing securities in the first half of the year in the Fund and were some of the best performers in the third quarter. In both cases, share prices rebounded irrespective of the broader market movements for company-specific reasons.”
An executive at a desk, poring over data and documents to ensure their reinsurance and insurance products are up to date. Editorial photo for a financial news article. 8k. –ar 16:9
ProAssurance Corporation (NYSE:PRA) is not on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 13 hedge fund portfolios held ProAssurance Corporation (NYSE:PRA) at the end of second quarter which was 15 in the previous quarter.
We discussed ProAssurance Corporation (NYSE:PRA) in another article and shared Third Avenue Small-Cap Value Fund’s views on the company in the previous quarter. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q3 2023 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.
