River Road Asset Management, an investment management company released its “River Road Small Cap Value Fund” Q4 2024 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. In the fourth quarter, AMG River Road Small Cap Value Fund (Class N) returned 7.35% compared to -1.06% returns for the Russell 2000® Value Index. For the year 2024, the fund returned 14.07%, significantly outperforming Index return of 8.06%. Stocks rallied in November after a Republican victory but declined sharply following hawkish Fed comments. Shorter duration stocks, including small caps and value, lost most of their post-election gains by the end of December. Small caps lagged their large counter parts for eight consecutive years. For more information on the fund’s best picks in 2024, please check its top five holdings.
In its fourth quarter 2024 investor letter, River Road Small Cap Value Fund emphasized stocks such as UniFirst Corporation (NYSE:UNF). Headquartered in Wilmington, Massachusetts, UniFirst Corporation (NYSE:UNF) is a workplace uniforms and protective workwear clothing provider. The one-month return of UniFirst Corporation (NYSE:UNF) was -18.77%, and its shares gained 2.05% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On March 28, 2025, UniFirst Corporation (NYSE:UNF) stock closed at $173.90 per share with a market capitalization of $3.211 billion.
River Road Small Cap Value Fund stated the following regarding UniFirst Corporation (NYSE:UNF) in its Q4 2024 investor letter:
“Another bottom contributor during the quarter was UniFirst Corporation (NYSE:UNF), the third-largest provider of workplace uniform rentals in North America. In October, UNF’s reported Q4 results were better than expected on strong new account sales and easing merchandise, payroll, and other input costs. However, fiscal 2025 guidance was underwhelming. Although we believed the guidance to be conservative, management anticipates some headwinds from the pricing environment and customer retention in the year ahead. Meanwhile, UNF trades at an attractive valuation relative to competitors and its own history and free cash flow continues to inflect higher. We maintained the position during the quarter.”
A team of workers wearing the company’s protective wear, looking off into the dawn.
UniFirst Corporation (NYSE:UNF) is not on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 25 hedge fund portfolios held UniFirst Corporation (NYSE:UNF) at the end of the fourth quarter compared to 20 in the third quarter. In the fiscal first quarter of 2025, UniFirst Corporation (NYSE:UNF) generated $604.9 million in revenues, showcasing a 1.9% year-over-year improvement. While we acknowledge the potential of UniFirst Corporation (NYSE:UNF) 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.
We covered UniFirst Corporation (NYSE:UNF) in another article, where we shared the list of hottest mid-cap stocks so far in 2025. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q4 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.