Ariel Investments, an investment management company, released its “Ariel Fund” first-quarter 2025 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. In the first quarter of 2025, the majority of the main U.S. indices saw a decline. Even though Wall Street is tense and markets are still volatile, the firm is taking advantage of the turbulence by carefully purchasing the undervalued stock of quality companies whose value should be realized over the long term. Against this backdrop, Ariel Fund returned -8.00% in the quarter, lagging both the Russell 2500 Value and Russell 2000 Value indices, which returned -5.83% and -7.74%. For more information on the fund’s top picks in 2025, please check its top five holdings.
In its first-quarter 2025 investor letter, Ariel Fund highlighted stocks such as Adtalem Global Education Inc. (NYSE:ATGE). Adtalem Global Education Inc. (NYSE:ATGE) offers workforce solutions that operate through Chamberlain, Walden, and Medical and Veterinary segments. The one-month return of Adtalem Global Education Inc. (NYSE:ATGE) was 0.85%, and its shares gained 116.35% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On April 22, 2025, Adtalem Global Education Inc. (NYSE:ATGE) stock closed at $102.14 per share with a market capitalization of $3.806 billion.
Ariel Fund stated the following regarding Adtalem Global Education Inc. (NYSE:ATGE) in its Q1 2025 investor letter:
“Shares of global leader in for-profit education, Adtalem Global Education Inc. (NYSE:ATGE), also jumped following a top- and bottom-line quarterly earnings beat driven by accelerating new student enrollment growth and a subsequent raise to fiscal year 2025 guidance. Revenue per student and margins at Chamberlain and Walden also came in significantly better than expected. Meanwhile, we remain encouraged by management’s solid execution of remediation initiatives at the medical and veterinary schools, where revenue growth outperformed and total enrollment trends are improving. Although regulatory uncertainty within the U.S education landscape remains, we view ATGE as well insulated, if not a beneficiary of potentially less onerous government scrutiny. Longer term, we believe ATGE’s strong fundamentals, quality programs, free cash flow generation and sturdy balance sheet are attractive. As the number one grantor of nursing degrees in the U.S. and the largest producer of African American MDs, PhDs and nurses in the country, we remain confident ATGE will benefit from the healthcare worker shortage in the U.S.”
A group of students in a lecture hall, with a professor lecturing to them in the forefront.
Adtalem Global Education Inc. (NYSE:ATGE) is not on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. Our database shows that 32 hedge fund portfolios held Adtalem Global Education Inc. (NYSE:ATGE) at the end of the fourth quarter, compared to 26 in the third quarter. Adtalem Global Education Inc.’s (NYSE:ATGE) revenue grew by 14% in the second quarter of fiscal 2025 to $448 million. While we acknowledge the potential of Adtalem Global Education Inc. (NYSE:ATGE) 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 covered Adtalem Global Education Inc. (NYSE:ATGE) and shared the list of best education stocks to buy in 2025. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q1 2025 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.