Investment management company RGA Investment Advisors recently released its third-quarter 2022 investor letter. A copy of the same can be downloaded here. In the third quarter, the market continued the declining trend from the first half of 2022, and September was the worst month for the fund. But the firm believes this is a good time to invest for the long term. The fund invested in biotech and life science tools and instruments verticals for better future returns. You can check the top 5 holdings of the fund to know its best picks in 2022.
In the third quarter 2022 investor letter, RGA Investment Advisors highlighted stocks like Azenta, Inc. (NASDAQ:AZTA). Headquartered in Chelmsford, Massachusetts, Azenta, Inc. (NASDAQ:AZTA) is a sample exploration and management solutions provider for the life science market. On October 19, 2022, Azenta, Inc. (NASDAQ:AZTA) stock closed at $40.06 per share. One-month return of Azenta, Inc. (NASDAQ:AZTA) was -12.76% and its shares lost 62.64% of their value over the last 52 weeks. Azenta, Inc. (NASDAQ:AZTA) has a market capitalization of $3.005 billion
RGA Investment Advisors made the following comment about Azenta, Inc. (NASDAQ:AZTA) in its Q3 2022 investor letter:
“Azenta, Inc. (NASDAQ:AZTA) now trading below book with $2b+ of dry powder in the form of cash and a high return, fast growing business at the core, led by a fantastic management team with a proven history. Cash is a whopping two thirds of the company’s market cap, because AZTA is what we call an “orphaned security.” We view this cash balance as one of those “hard floors” mentioned above. The company came into existence out of a semiconductor capital equipment business called Brooks Automation. Management divested the Brooks business near the peak of semi sector valuations and committed to plow the entire proceeds into logical adjacencies for their fledgling life science business. How did a semiconductor company get into life sciences? They had built a uniquely capable robotic arm that when outfitted to a cryogenic freezer became the dominant automated storage solution for frozen biologic assets. This led AZTA into storage-as-a-service and other product and service related adjacencies. AZTA already has over 100 CGT customers, generating 10% of the company’s revenue that is growing at a swifter rate than the core business. Critically, CGTs are far more reliant on cryogenic storage at numerous points in their lifecycle, from clinic through treatment and as treatments are commercialized, far more of AZTA’s unique solutions will be necessary. As it stands today, the core business is trading at a high single digits EV/EBITDA multiple on their FY 2023 (which they are nearly one quarter into) and the company can either repurchase large chunks of shares or acquire great assets at what are now far better prices. We think AZTA right here is one of the better risk/rewards of our career.”
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Azenta, Inc. (NASDAQ:AZTA) is not on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 23 hedge fund portfolios held Azenta, Inc. (NASDAQ:AZTA) at the end of the second quarter which was 25 in the previous quarter.
We discussed Azenta, Inc. (NASDAQ:AZTA) in another article and shared the list of best depressed stocks to invest in. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q3 2022 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.