Baron Funds, an investment management company, released its “Baron Discovery Fund” fourth quarter 2023 investor letter. A copy of the same can be downloaded here. In 2023, the fund (Institutional Shares) returned 22.58% outperforming the 18.66% return for the Russell 2000 Growth Index. In Q4, the fund returned 12.44% compared to a 12.75% return for the index. Since its inception, investors in the fund have earned an annualized return of 12.42%, resulting in a more than tripled investment. In addition, please check the fund’s top five holdings to know its best picks in 2023.
Baron Discovery Fund featured stocks such as AAAON, Inc. (NASDAQ:AAON) in the fourth quarter 2023 investor letter. Headquartered in Tulsa, Oklahoma, AAON, Inc. (NASDAQ:AAON) is an air conditioning and heating equipment manufacturer. On February 6, 2024, AAON, Inc. (NASDAQ:AAON) stock closed at $72.07 per share. One-month return of AAON, Inc. (NASDAQ:AAON) was 0.31%, and its shares gained 40.29% of their value over the last 52 weeks. AAON, Inc. (NASDAQ:AAON) has a market capitalization of $5.855 billion.
Baron Discovery Fund stated the following regarding AAON, Inc. (NASDAQ:AAON) in its fourth quarter 2023 investor letter:
“AAON, Inc. (NASDAQ:AAON) is a high-quality manufacturer of HVAC equipment based in Tulsa, OK. It is a leader in providing premium, semi-custom HVAC equipment to the non-residential market with products that are more energy efficient, have longer life spans, and overall are better customized than peers to fit customers’ needs. This has driven significant outperformance over the past decade with organic growth in the high single-digit to low double-digit range compared to a low to mid-single-digit range for its peers.
Strong secular growth driven by decarbonization and broader ESG trends/ regulations is leading to greater demand for the types of products AAON specializes in such as energy efficient HVAC equipment that provides better air quality. To satisfy incoming regulations, peers have been forced to update their offerings and raise prices, while AAON today has ready-to-ship products satisfying all regulations. This dynamic is reducing the price premium between AAON’s products and the industry standards from 15% to 20% historically to a high single-digit level today. This price gap reduction is accelerating volume growth and enabling the company to take share. With the acquisition of BasX Solutions, a leader in data center, cleanroom systems, and custom HVAC units in December 2021, AAON expanded its addressable market by around 50% to over $30 billion in segments of the market where its focus on energy efficient units is extremely valuable. BasX’s adjusted cash flow (EBITDA) has roughly doubled over the past two years under AAON’s ownership. Lastly, CEO Gary Fields has undertaken a multi-year reorganization of the company’s management team and invigoration of company culture with a greater focus on selling and pushing the AAON solution from niche to mainstream. A simple illustration of the change brought by Gary is the opening of the exploration center this past April. This is a 28,000 square foot facility with over 10,000 square feet of exhibits and AAON products. We toured this facility at the company’s Analyst Day this past May where AAON units were placed next to competitor solutions. By purchasing and deconstructing competitors solutions, the team clearly highlighted the value of AAON’s superior products. They are more durable and have higher levels of efficiency. The team hoped that they would bring one to two potential customers a week to the center, but the demand has been so strong that one to two customers a day are visiting with a strong conversion from visits to eventual orders.
Going forward, with run-rate revenue at a little over $1 billion in a $30 billion market, there is ample opportunity ahead for AAON to grow and take market share. We expect mid-single-digit price increases across its product set along with mid-single-digit volume growth. The business is about 65% replacement/35% new construction with a mix of end-markets and limited exposure to new office construction. Given the growth opportunity ahead, the company is continuing to invest aggressively but at the same time has taken steps to maximize its physical footprint and, over time, will achieve greater levels of operating leverage. We believe the company will drive gross margins from the low 30% to the mid-high 30% levels with EBITDA margins expanding from the low to high 20% levels over our five year investment horizon. We calculate this combination of above market growth combined with significant margin expansion will allow us to double our investment over the next five years.”
A technician surrounded by complex chillers and data center cooling solutions.
AAON, Inc. (NASDAQ:AAON) is not on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 20 hedge fund portfolios held AAON, Inc. (NASDAQ:AAON) at the end of third quarter which was 19 in the previous quarter.
We discussed AAON, Inc. (NASDAQ:AAON) in another article and shared the list of best growth stocks to buy according to billionaire Ray Dalio’s Bridgewater Associates. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q4 2023 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.
