Meridian Funds, managed by ArrowMark Partners, released its “Meridian Contrarian Fund” fourth quarter 2023 investor letter. A copy of the same can be downloaded here. Optimism started to prevail, during the last months of the year, and investors reacted positively to news of a potential change in direction by the US Federal Reserve, as well as indications that the US economy is heading for a soft landing. In the fourth quarter, the fund returned 8.80% (net) compared to a 13.3% return for the Russell 2500 Index. Furthermore, the fund underperformed its secondary benchmark, the Russell 2500 Value Index, which returned 13.76% during the same period. In addition, you can check the top 5 holdings of the fund to know its best picks in 2023.
Meridian Contrarian Fund featured stocks like The Honest Company, Inc. (NASDAQ:HNST) in the Q4 2023 investor letter. Headquartered in Los Angeles, California, The Honest Company, Inc. (NASDAQ:HNST) manufactures and sells diapers and wipes, skin and personal care, and household and wellness products. On April 2, 2024, The Honest Company, Inc. (NASDAQ:HNST) stock closed at $3.76 per share. One-month return of The Honest Company, Inc. (NASDAQ:HNST) was 19.37%, and its shares gained 97.89% of their value over the last 52 weeks. The Honest Company, Inc. (NASDAQ:HNST) has a market capitalization of $360.558 million.
Meridian Contrarian Fund stated the following regarding The Honest Company, Inc. (NASDAQ:HNST) in its fourth quarter 2023 investor letter:
“The Honest Company, Inc. (NASDAQ:HNST) is a consumer products company focused on developing natural baby-care consumables, cosmetics, soaps, and other household supplies. Honest went public in 2021 as the pandemic helped drive high demand for its cleaning products. Subsequently, global supply chain challenges proved exceptionally tough for the smaller company. We view the Honest brand as an authentic differentiator that has outgrown its categories despite the operational challenges that significantly hurt recent earnings potential. The Honest Company’s outperformance in the quarter and second half of 2023 was driven by the company showing increased traction on sales returning to growth – despite significant SKU rationalization – along with deepening relationships with the largest retailers in the US, Walmart, Target, and others. The results increased optimism into 2024 and beyond as the new management team makes improvements to the company’s product positioning, along with improving cost control. With significant white space to grow sales of its winning products on shelves and online, we expect The Honest Company to see years of growth and increasing returns. We added to our net holding over the course of 2023 to take advantage of the deeply discounted stock. Yet, we harvested some tax losses early in the fourth quarter to manage taxes and maintain appropriate risk exposure.”
A close up of different packs of diapers and wipes, demonstrating the company’s main product range.
The Honest Company, Inc. (NASDAQ:HNST) is not on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. At the end of the fourth quarter, The Honest Company, Inc. (NASDAQ:HNST) was held by 16 hedge fund portfolios, compared to 10 in the previous quarter, according to our database. 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.
