Meridian Funds, managed by ArrowMark Partners, released its “Meridian Contrarian Fund” third quarter 2022 investor letter. A copy of the same can be downloaded here. In the third quarter, the fund returned -3.28% net compared to -2.82% return for the Russell 2500 Index. At the same time, the fund outperformed its secondary benchmark, the Russell 2500 Value Index, which returned -4.50%. In addition, you can check the top 5 holdings of the fund to know its best picks in 2022.
Meridian Funds highlighted stocks like First Citizens BancShares, Inc. (NASDAQ:FCNCA) in the Q3 2022 investor letter. Headquartered in Raleigh, North Carolina, First Citizens BancShares, Inc. (NASDAQ:FCNCA) provides commercial and retail banking services. On December 7, 2022, First Citizens BancShares, Inc. (NASDAQ:FCNCA) stock closed at $785.01 per share. One-month return of First Citizens BancShares, Inc. (NASDAQ:FCNCA) was -7.37% and its shares lost 3.76% of their value over the last 52 weeks. First Citizens BancShares, Inc. (NASDAQ:FCNCA) has a market capitalization of $11.302 billion.
Meridian Funds made the following comment about First Citizens BancShares, Inc. (NASDAQ:FCNCA) in its Q3 2022 investor letter:
“First Citizens BancShares, Inc. (NASDAQ:FCNCA) is a regional bank located in the southeast U.S. with strong legacy relationships. In October 2020, the company announced plans to merge with national lender CIT Bank. After an elongated review period, federal regulators finally approved the merger in December 2021. However, during the review period, First Citizens experienced several quarters of year-over-year earnings declines due to holding onto additional capital needed to close the deal. This pressured the stock and made the regional bank one of the cheapest in its category on a priceto-book value basis. We felt it was a good time to initiate a position in the stock as our analysis indicated that First Citizens has a long track record of consistent earnings growth due to its focus on relationship lending and conservative underwriting, which has led to above-peer returns on equity. We believe this strategy will now be enhanced by CIT’s large national commercial lending presence, allowing First Citizens to take advantage of its stable relationship deposits. The stock was up 22% in the third quarter. Performance was driven by First Citizens’ announcement to restart a share repurchase plan and a positive outlook on earnings as the Fed continues to raise the Fed Funds Rate. We believe the company is poised to accelerate earnings growth and are excited about its focus on returning capital to shareholders. We maintained our position in the stock.”
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First Citizens BancShares, Inc. (NASDAQ:FCNCA) is not on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 34 hedge fund portfolios held First Citizens BancShares, Inc. (NASDAQ:FCNCA) at the end of the third quarter, which was 34 in the previous quarter.
We discussed First Citizens BancShares, Inc. (NASDAQ:FCNCA) in another article and shared the top stock picks of Seth Rosen’s Nitorum Capital. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q3 2022 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.
