A whopping number of 13F filings filed with U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has been processed by Insider Monkey so that individual investors can look at the overall hedge fund sentiment towards the stocks included in their watchlists. These freshly-submitted public filings disclose money managers’ equity positions as of the end of the three-month period that ended September 30th, so let’s proceed with the discussion of the hedge fund sentiment on Univar Solutions Inc (NYSE:UNVR).
Is Univar Solutions Inc (NYSE:UNVR) a healthy stock for your portfolio? Money managers were in an optimistic mood. The number of bullish hedge fund positions improved by 1 in recent months. Univar Solutions Inc (NYSE:UNVR) was in 29 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the third quarter of 2021. The all time high for this statistic is 43. Our calculations also showed that UNVR isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q3 rankings).
At Insider Monkey, we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. For example, lithium prices have more than doubled over the past year, so we go through lists like the 10 best EV stocks to pick the next Tesla that will deliver a 10x return. Even though we recommend positions in only a tiny fraction of the companies we analyze, we check out as many stocks as we can. Now we’re going to take a look at the key hedge fund action encompassing Univar Solutions Inc (NYSE:UNVR).
Harold Levy of Iridian Asset Management
Do Hedge Funds Think UNVR Is A Good Stock To Buy Now?
At Q3’s end, a total of 29 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a change of 4% from the second quarter of 2021. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards UNVR over the last 25 quarters. So, let’s examine which hedge funds were among the top holders of the stock and which hedge funds were making big moves.
The largest stake in Univar Solutions Inc (NYSE:UNVR) was held by Lyrical Asset Management, which reported holding $141 million worth of stock at the end of September. It was followed by First Pacific Advisors LLC with a $110.9 million position. Other investors bullish on the company included Iridian Asset Management, Paradice Investment Management, and FPR Partners. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Atlantic Investment Management allocated the biggest weight to Univar Solutions Inc (NYSE:UNVR), around 16.41% of its 13F portfolio. Paradice Investment Management is also relatively very bullish on the stock, designating 3.9 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to UNVR.
Now, key hedge funds have been driving this bullishness. Inherent Group, managed by Tony Davis, assembled the most outsized position in Univar Solutions Inc (NYSE:UNVR). Inherent Group had $17.3 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Zilvinas Mecelis’s Covalis Capital also made a $5.3 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with new positions in the stock are Paul Tudor Jones’s Tudor Investment Corp, Peter Rathjens, Bruce Clarke and John Campbell’s Arrowstreet Capital, and Ryan Tolkin (CIO)’s Schonfeld Strategic Advisors.
Let’s check out hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Univar Solutions Inc (NYSE:UNVR) but similarly valued. We will take a look at Sonos, Inc. (NASDAQ:SONO), Spectrum Brands Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:SPB), Safehold Inc. (NYSE:SAFE), Vonage Holdings Corp. (NASDAQ:VG), BRF SA (NYSE:BRFS), Nevro Corp (NYSE:NVRO), and Inari Medical, Inc. (NASDAQ:NARI). This group of stocks’ market valuations are closest to UNVR’s market valuation.
| Ticker | No of HFs with positions | Total Value of HF Positions (x1000) | Change in HF Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| SONO | 49 | 647491 | 2 |
| SPB | 30 | 642268 | -5 |
| SAFE | 18 | 65725 | 12 |
| VG | 29 | 843024 | 0 |
| BRFS | 6 | 8102 | 0 |
| NVRO | 29 | 572021 | 3 |
| NARI | 23 | 237661 | -7 |
| Average | 26.3 | 430899 | 0.7 |
View table here if you experience formatting issues.
As you can see these stocks had an average of 26.3 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $431 million. That figure was $676 million in UNVR’s case. Sonos, Inc. (NASDAQ:SONO) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand BRF SA (NYSE:BRFS) is the least popular one with only 6 bullish hedge fund positions. Univar Solutions Inc (NYSE:UNVR) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for UNVR is 53. Stocks with higher number of hedge fund positions relative to other stocks as well as relative to their historical range receive a higher sentiment score. Our calculations showed that top 5 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 95.8% in 2019 and 2020, and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 40 percentage points. These stocks gained 28.6% in 2021 through November 30th and still beat the market by 5.6 percentage points. Hedge funds were also right about betting on UNVR as the stock returned 8.8% since the end of Q3 (through 11/30) and outperformed the market. Hedge funds were rewarded for their relative bullishness.
Follow Univar Solutions Inc. (NYSE:UNVR)
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Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
