Baron Funds, an investment management company, released its “Baron Discovery Fund” second quarter 2023 investor letter. A copy of the same can be downloaded here. The fund was up 3.58% (Institutional Shares) in the second quarter trailing the Russell 2000 Growth Index’s 7.05% return. Year-to-date, the fund returned 15.19% (Institutional Shares) compared to a 13.55% return for the benchmark. The macroeconomic landscape remains complicated, and the market’s general tendency is toward fear rather than greed. Nonetheless, the firm remains hopeful that the market has bottomed and that an economic recovery is starting. In addition, please check the fund’s top five holdings to know its best picks in 2023.
Baron Discovery Fund highlighted stocks like Stevanato Group S.p.A. (NYSE:STVN) in the second quarter 2023 investor letter. Headquartered in Piombino Dese, Italy, Stevanato Group S.p.A. (NYSE:STVN) produces and distributes products and processes for biopharma and healthcare. On August 18, 2023, Stevanato Group S.p.A. (NYSE:STVN) stock closed at $30.96 per share. One-month return of Stevanato Group S.p.A. (NYSE:STVN) was -5.84%, and its shares gained 86.96% of their value over the last 52 weeks. Stevanato Group S.p.A. (NYSE:STVN) has a market capitalization of $8.195 billion.
Baron Discovery Fund made the following comment about Stevanato Group S.p.A. (NYSE:STVN) in its second quarter 2023 investor letter:
“Another new investment is Stevanato Group S.p.A. (NYSE:STVN), a leading global provider of glass pharmaceutical packaging. Stevanato converts glass tubing to high-quality finished vials, cartridges, and syringes for use as primary packaging for injectable drugs (roughly 70% of revenues). It also sells engineering equipment to the supply chain (20% of revenues) and glass and plastic devices for drug delivery systems and diagnostic solutions (10% of revenues). Stevanato has a stable growth business that will benefit from a product mix shift towards higher-value, higher-priced, higher-margin products such as EZ-Fill (ready-to-fill products that have been washed, sterilized, and depyrogenated), Alba (a technology that reduces silicone oil particle leaks and delamination for high-value drugs), and Nexa (a technology that provides high-mechanical resistance and a narrow specification range). These high-value solutions command significantly higher price points – we estimate that high-value solutions currently account for a third of the company’s revenues but only a mid-single-digit percentage of the company’s volumes. Pharmaceutical companies have increasingly invested in pipeline drugs and manufacturing supply chains more suited to these high-value solutions, and we expect adoption to accelerate in the coming years. We think Stevanato can grow high single digits to low double digits on the top-line with EBITDA margin expansion to the high 20% to low 30% range over time.”
VILevi/Shutterstock.com
Stevanato Group S.p.A. (NYSE:STVN) is not on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 10 hedge fund portfolios held Stevanato Group S.p.A. (NYSE:STVN) at the end of second quarter which was 9 in the previous quarter.
We discussed Stevanato Group S.p.A. (NYSE:STVN) in another article and shared the list of best multibagger stocks. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q2 2023 page for more investor letters from hedge funds and other leading investors.
Suggested Articles:
- Warren Buffett’s 11 Growth Stock Picks
- Ken Fisher’s Top 15 Energy Stock Picks
- Michael Burry’s Top 10 Stock Picks For Q3
Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.
