Polen Capital, an investment management company, released its “Polen Global SMID Company Growth” third quarter 2024 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. In the third quarter, the fund returned 7.41 (gross) and 7.40% (net) compared to a 9.37% return for the MSCI ACWI SMID Net Index. Negative stock selection and sector and country allocation led the portfolio to underperform in the quarter. Despite volatile market sentiments, global small and mid-cap equities posted gains in the third quarter. In addition, please check the fund’s top five holdings to know its best picks in 2024.
Polen Global SMID Company Growth highlighted stocks like ExlService Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:EXLS) in the Q3 2024 investor letter. ExlService Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:EXLS) is a data analytics and digital operations and solutions company. The one-month return of ExlService Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:EXLS) was 12.98%, and its shares gained 57.60% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On November 20, 2024, ExlService Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:EXLS) stock closed at $44.38 per share with a market capitalization of $7.14 billion.
Polen Global SMID Company Growth stated the following regarding ExlService Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:EXLS) in its Q3 2024 investor letter:
“We initiated a position in ExlService Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:EXLS), a business process outsourcing company that we think has become a leader in data services over time. Exlservice is a diversified business with 95% customer renewal rates and four-to-five-year contracts. While the work is not glamorous, the company is experiencing strong demand from customers attempting to determine how to best clean up and structure data to participate in the next stages of digital transformation, including generative Al (“GenAl”). We expect this strong customer demand to continue. Many companies are faced with significant basic blocking to benefit from GenAl successfully. Simultaneously, the company invests heavily in developing GenAl-enabled tools and recently announced partnerships with Microsoft and AWS (Amazon Web Services is’ Amazon’s comprehensive cloud computing platform) to co develop Al solutions and accelerate go-to-market plans.”
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ExlService Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:EXLS) is not on our list of 31 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 22 hedge fund portfolios held ExlService Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:EXLS) at the end of the third quarter which was 24 in the previous quarter. In the third quarter ExlService Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:EXLS) generated $472 million in revenues, up 15% year-over-year. While we acknowledge the potential of ExlService Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:EXLS) 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 ExlService Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:EXLS) and shared Polen U.S. SMID Company Growth Strategy’s views on the company in the previous quarter. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q3 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.