Baron Funds, an investment management company, released its “Baron Opportunity Fund” second quarter 2023 investor letter. A copy of the same can be downloaded here. In the second quarter, the fund increased by 16.31% (Institutional Shares) outperforming the broader market including the Russell 3000 Growth Index and the S&P 500 Index, which gained 12.47% and 8.74% respectively. The Fund was up 37.21% year to date and 27.86% for the trailing 12 months, respectively, outperforming both indices. In addition, please check the fund’s top five holdings to know its best picks in 2023.
Baron Opportunity Fund highlighted stocks like World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. (NYSE:WWE) in the second quarter 2023 investor letter. Headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut, World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. (NYSE:WWE) is a media and entertainment company. On August 21, 2023, World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. (NYSE:WWE) stock closed at $113.88 per share. One-month return of World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. (NYSE:WWE) was 7.42%, and its shares gained 65.43% of their value over the last 52 weeks. World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. (NYSE:WWE) has a market capitalization of $9.47 billion.
Baron Opportunity Fund made the following comment about World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. (NYSE:WWE) in its second quarter 2023 investor letter:
“During the quarter, our largest purchase was Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. (NYSE:WWE) and our largest sale was Endeavor Group Holdings, Inc. We swapped one for the other upon the two companies’ announcements that they plan to merge Endeavor’s Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) asset with the WWE in a new publicly traded vehicle, with Endeavor maintaining majority control of the combined business. We’ve been shareholders in Endeavor since its IPO in April 2021 and have been studying the business since 2019. We think the company has an interesting collection of premium, hard-to-value assets, but the principal driver of our interest was its ownership of the UFC, the largest and most prestigious promoter of global combat sports. Our swap from one stock to the other was essentially a decision on the preferred vehicle to continue our ownership in the UFC. We chose WWE (whose shares will convert into shares of TKO Group Holdings (TKO) when the transaction is completed later this year) for the following reasons:
(1) TKO will be a pureplay on premium sports media rights (WWE + UFC) that we expect to continue increasing in value, with significant broadcast rights expirations coming in 2024 to 2026; (2) We believe WWE investors expected a complete sale of the company rather than a stock-for-stock merger and some technical pressure and confusion about the ultimate economic value of the equity they were receiving caused the WWE vehicle to trade at a discount immediately following the transaction, of which we were able to take advantage;…” (Click here to read the full text)
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World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. (NYSE:WWE) is not on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 44 hedge fund portfolios held World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. (NYSE:WWE) at the end of second quarter which was 42 in the previous quarter.
We discussed World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. (NYSE:WWE) in another article and shared Merion Road Capital’s views on the company. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q2 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.
