Meridian Funds, managed by ArrowMark Partners, released its “Meridian Contrarian Fund” fourth quarter 2022 investor letter. A copy of the same can be downloaded here. In the fourth quarter, the fund returned 8.78% net compared to a 7.43% return for the Russell 2500 Index. Furthermore, the fund underperformed its secondary benchmark, the Russell 2500 Value Index, which returned 9.21%. In addition, you can check the top 5 holdings of the fund to know its best picks in 2022.
Meridian Contrarian Fund highlighted stocks like American International Group, Inc. (NYSE:AIG) in the fourth quarter investor letter. Headquartered in New York, New York, American International Group, Inc. (NYSE:AIG) is an insurance products provider. On March 23, 2023, American International Group, Inc. (NYSE:AIG) stock closed at $47.16 per share. One-month return of American International Group, Inc. (NYSE:AIG) was -21.62%, and its shares lost 26.86% of their value over the last 52 weeks. American International Group, Inc. (NYSE:AIG) has a market capitalization of $34.769 billion.
Meridian Contrarian Fund made the following comment about American International Group, Inc. (NYSE:AIG) in its Q4 2022 investor letter:
“American International Group, Inc. (NYSE:AIG), is a global insurance and financial services firm focused primarily on property and casualty insurance. It started divesting its life and retirement business, Corebridge Financial, in September. We first invested in 2018 as AIG entered the final phases of a decadelong turnaround initiated after the global financial crisis which features extensive technology investments that reduce operating costs and a heightened focus on niche lines of insurance underwriting where AIG has operational differentiation to drive better pricing control and market participation. We believe these operational levers will continue to drive profitability—measured in its combined ratio—while enabling more capital allocation to stockholders. In 2022, solid underwriting quality coupled with a strong pricing environment drove AIG’s profitability to levels not seen since before the global financial crisis, and in the third quarter, AIG divested a portion of Corebridge to free up more capital for aggressive buybacks. AIG’s most recent quarterly results featured strong underwriting results against concerns of catastrophic losses from hurricanes and wildfires, which AIG effectively sidestepped by previously exiting commercial insurance in high-risk areas. In addition to benefiting from the stock’s rise, we added to our position as we believe the profitability improvements are durable and further buybacks will continue to support the stock that still traded near book value at quarter’s end.”
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American International Group, Inc. (NYSE:AIG) is not on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 46 hedge fund portfolios held American International Group, Inc. (NYSE:AIG) at the end of the fourth quarter which was 48 in the previous quarter.
We discussed American International Group, Inc. (NYSE:AIG) in another article and shared Diamond Hill Large Cap Strategy’s views on the company. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q4 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.
