Baron Funds, an investment management company, released its “Baron Discovery Fund” second quarter 2024 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. In the second quarter, the fund (Institutional Shares) declined 7.78% underperforming the 2.92% return for the Russell 2000 Growth Index. The lion’s share of negative attribution and 6.52% of negative performance of the fund during the quarter were attributed to the ten worst-performing equities. The firm believes downward movements are more technically tied to macroeconomic issues and the trading environment and could quickly revert. In addition, please check the fund’s top five holdings to know its best picks in 2024.
Baron Discovery Fund highlighted stocks like Repligen Corporation (NASDAQ:RGEN) in the second quarter 2024 investor letter. Repligen Corporation (NASDAQ:RGEN) develops and distributes bioprocessing technologies and systems. The one-month return of Repligen Corporation (NASDAQ:RGEN) was 5.18%, and its shares lost 10.13% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On August 22, 2024, Repligen Corporation (NASDAQ:RGEN) stock closed at $148.08 per share with a market capitalization of $8.293 billion.
Baron Discovery Fund stated the following regarding Repligen Corporation (NASDAQ:RGEN) in its Q2 2024 investor letter:
“Repligen Corporation (NASDAQ:RGEN) is another company benefitting from the massive growth in approvals of biologic drugs (including GLP-1’s). It manufactures equipment that drug companies use to produce these drugs. Like other suppliers to the biologics industry, Repligen has experienced demand headwinds this year from Chinese buyers (now only 5% of sales), the loss of COVID-19 revenue (now insignificant), and a reduction in protein sales due to the loss of a customer and excess channel inventory. These challenges combined for about $75 million in revenues (or about an 11.5% headwind to 2024 sales). Sales were down 20% in 2023 (which we had anticipated when we bought the stock in mid-2023). Unfortunately, shares fell after the company’s very well-liked CEO Tony Hunt decided to step down. Fortunately, Mr. Hunt has agreed to stay on as Chairperson for at least another three years. The timing of this decision was not received well by investors given the bumpy macro environment. We still believe in the long-term prospects for Repligen and its newly appointed CEO, Oliver Loeillot. Mr. Loeillot has been the COO of the company for nine months and was hand-picked by Mr. Hunt to succeed him. We spoke to both men after the announcement and are confident that the current strategic plan will continue to be executed by Mr. Loeillot. In the meantime, Repligen trades at its lowest valuation multiple in five years. Chaos equals opportunity.”
A technician in a lab inspecting an ELISA test kit for use in biopharmaceutical diagnostics.
Repligen Corporation (NASDAQ:RGEN) is not on our list of 31 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 37 hedge fund portfolios held Repligen Corporation (NASDAQ:RGEN) at the end of the second quarter which was 32 in the previous quarter. Repligen Corporation (NASDAQ:RGEN) reported $154 million in revenues in the second quarter, a decline of 3% year-over-year. While we acknowledge the potential of Repligen Corporation (NASDAQ:RGEN) 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 Repligen Corporation (NASDAQ:RGEN) and shared Conestoga Capital Advisors’ views on the company. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q2 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.
