ClearBridge Investments, an investment management company, released its “ClearBridge SMID Cap Growth Strategy” second quarter 2024 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. The Strategy underperformed its Russell 2500 Growth Index benchmark in the quarter. Although there were strong contributions from a few companies across different sectors, the underperformance relative to the benchmark was minimal during the second quarter. In addition, please check the fund’s top five holdings to know its best picks in 2024.
ClearBridge SMID Cap Growth Strategy highlighted stocks like Stevanato Group S.p.A. (NYSE:STVN) in the second quarter 2024 investor letter. Stevanato Group S.p.A. (NYSE:STVN) designs and distributes products and processes to offer integrated solutions for the biopharma and healthcare industries. The one-month return of Stevanato Group S.p.A. (NYSE:STVN) was -1.05%, and its shares lost 27.15% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On September 26, 2024, Stevanato Group S.p.A. (NYSE:STVN) stock closed at $20.82 per share with a market capitalization of $5.907 billion.
ClearBridge SMID Cap Growth Strategy stated the following regarding Stevanato Group S.p.A. (NYSE:STVN) in its Q2 2024 investor letter:
“We exited our position in health care company Stevanato Group S.p.A. (NYSE:STVN), which designs, produces, and distributes products and processes to provide integrated solutions for biopharma and health care customers. The company has struggled with broader industry headwinds including a delayed destocking and recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, and our conviction in the company’s management team was further weakened after it announced an additional equity offering and subsequent reduction of Stevanato’s full-year guidance. Ultimately, we elected to exit the position in favor of other opportunities with greater risk/reward profiles.”
A scientist in a laboratory observing a drug delivery system through a microscope.
Stevanato Group S.p.A. (NYSE:STVN) is not on our list of 31 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 13 hedge fund portfolios held Stevanato Group S.p.A. (NYSE:STVN) at the end of the second quarter which was 15 in the previous quarter. While we acknowledge the potential of Stevanato Group S.p.A. (NYSE:STVN) 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 Stevanato Group S.p.A. (NYSE:STVN) and shared TimesSquare Capital U.S. Mid Cap Growth Strategy’s views on the company. Stevanato Group S.p.A. (NYSE:STVN) detracted from the performance of Ave Maria World Equity Fund in Q2 2024. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q2 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.