Heartland Advisors, an investment management company, released its “Heartland Value Fund” fourth quarter 2023 investor letter. A copy of the same can be downloaded here. The fund returned 11.7% in the quarter, trailing the 15.3% gains for the Russell 2000 Value Index. The underperformance was attributed to security selection in addition to the strong rally in early cycle sectors where the fund was underweighted. For the full year, the fund returned 17.1% versus 14.7% for the benchmark, stock selection led to the outperformance of the fund in 2023. In addition, you can check the top 5 holdings of the fund to know its best picks in 2023.
Heartland Value Fund highlighted stocks like Centerra Gold Inc. (NYSE:CGAU) in the fourth quarter 2023 investor letter. Headquartered in Toronto, Canada, Centerra Gold Inc. (NYSE:CGAU) is a gold mining company. On January 10, 2024, Centerra Gold Inc. (NYSE:CGAU) stock closed at $5.46 per share. One-month return of Centerra Gold Inc. (NYSE:CGAU) was -6.67%, and its shares lost 10.05% of their value over the last 52 weeks. Centerra Gold Inc. (NYSE:CGAU) has a market capitalization of $1.178 billion.
Heartland Value Fund stated the following regarding Centerra Gold Inc. (NYSE:CGAU) in its fourth quarter 2023 investor letter:
“Early last year, we highlighted Centerra Gold Inc. (NYSE:CGAU), a producer of gold and copper. With the recent pivot by the Federal Reserve to an easy money policy, we thought an update of this underappreciated hard asset was timely.
Centerra continues to make progress in increasing production while lowering costs. During the third quarter, the Oksut mine restarted, resulting in earnings per share of $0.20 while throwing off cash flow in excess of $100 million. Centerra remains debt free with cash soaring to $492 million, or $2.28 per share. A new management team is focused on optimizing a diverse portfolio of assets, including a strategy to boost the value of its molybdenum business for eventual sale. With an admirable balance sheet, Centerra has the resources to fund an aggressive exploration program in North America, pay a 3.3% dividend, and embark on an 8.5% repurchase of shares outstanding.
Trading below stated book value, approximately 60% of NAV, and less than 3X EV/EBITDA, we believe Centerra remains an outstanding small cap value.”
Drills extracting gold from a gold mine, revealing the company’s gold mining operation.
Centerra Gold Inc. (NYSE:CGAU) is not on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 10 hedge fund portfolios held Centerra Gold Inc. (NYSE:CGAU) at the end of third quarter which was 13 in the previous quarter.
We discussed Centerra Gold Inc. (NYSE:CGAU) in another article and shared the list of most promising gold stocks according to analysts. 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.