Brown Advisors, an investment management company, released its “Brown Advisors Global Leaders Strategy” fourth quarter 2024 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. In the letter the firm discusses its performance, four new investments made in 2024, lessons from one exit, and insights from its annual offsite. The strategy targets double-digit annualized returns over five years, aiming for 10%+ to double investors’ money every seven years. In 2024, the UCITS C-share USD returned 14.7% net of fees, while the MSCI ACWI benchmark returned 17.5%. Since inception, the Global Leaders UCITS C-share USD has delivered an annualized 11.4% net after fees, surpassing firm’s target, compared to the MSCI ACWI’s 8.9%. In addition, please check the fund’s top five holdings to know its best picks in 2024.
In its fourth quarter 2024 investor letter, Brown Advisors Global Leaders Strategy emphasized stocks such as Illumina, Inc. (NASDAQ:ILMN). Illumina, Inc. (NASDAQ:ILMN) offers sequencing- and array-based solutions for genetic and genomic analysis. The one-month return of Illumina, Inc. (NASDAQ:ILMN) was -32.97%, and its shares lost 34.84% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On February 27, 2025, Illumina, Inc. (NASDAQ:ILMN) stock closed at $88.97 per share with a market capitalization of $14.093 billion.
Brown Advisors Global Leaders Strategy stated the following regarding Illumina, Inc. (NASDAQ:ILMN) in its Q4 2024 investor letter:
“We added one new investment in the fourth quarter, U.S. life science & diagnostics company Illumina, Inc. (NASDAQ:ILMN), a global market leader in genetic and genomic analysis with a market share of over 80%. Through its innovative technologies, Illumina has been driving down gene sequencing costs over the past 20 years from the c.$3.0bn it cost to originally sequence the first human genome in 2003 to $200 today, enabling better and timelier diagnostics for customers and significant benefits for the health care system.11 Illumina’s customer base has evolved from predominantly research focused institutions to now include nearly half of revenues from clinical customers looking for gene sequencing technology to identify disease susceptibility, predisposition, and identification in structurally growing “personalized medicine” end markets. With most global sequencing done on Illumina’s machines, the company drives long-term profitability through scale and leadership in intellectual property. The strong integration of its solutions in clients’ laboratory workflows means that switching costs are high. Any switch from Illumina machines changes lab workflows adding process complexity and impairs comparability of prior test results necessitating extra analysis to interpret new output data. Consumables, such as sequencing kits for specific genomes, are the main revenue driver with over 70% revenue contribution. We expect strong consumables growth as customers transition to Illumina’s newest technology platform with better workflow management (e.g., room temperature chemistry vs previous frozen-storage supply chain), higher test volume productivity and improved cost-effectiveness. We expect high single-digit 5-year revenue growth combined with better operational management to deliver low teens FCF growth.”
A research facility with medical professionals surrounded by diagnostic equipment.
Illumina, Inc. (NASDAQ:ILMN) is not on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 61 hedge fund portfolios held Illumina, Inc. (NASDAQ:ILMN) at the end of the fourth quarter compared to 54 in the third quarter. Illumina, Inc.’s (NASDAQ:ILMN) fourth-quarter revenue reached $1.1 billion, surpassing expectations. While we acknowledge the potential of Illumina, Inc. (NASDAQ:ILMN) 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.
In another article, we discussed Illumina, Inc. (NASDAQ:ILMN) and shared Baron Fifth Avenue Growth Fund’s views on the company. 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.