Alluvium Asset Management, an asset management company, released its “Conventum – Alluvium Global Fund” third-quarter 2024 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. The equity market continued its rally in the third quarter. The Fund was up 4.3%, 8.7% and 4.6% in EUR, USD and AUD terms, in the quarter. In addition, please check the fund’s top five holdings to know its best picks in 2024.
Conventum – Alluvium Global Fund highlighted stocks like Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) in the third quarter 2024 investor letter. Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) is a payment technology company. The one-month return of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) was 7.96%, and its shares gained 24.37% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On December 2, 2024, Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) stock closed at $316.65 per share with a market capitalization of $612.772 billion.
Conventum – Alluvium Global Fund stated the following regarding Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) in its Q3 2024 investor letter:
“We acquired two new investments, being Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) and Lockheed Martin. We have discussed over the last couple of years our evolving investment process to become increasingly focussed on quality. In June 2022 we undertook the first step of that process – making changes to our quantitative screen. Specifically, we loosened the requirements with regard to traditionally measured “cheapness” (how the business is priced relative to its past earnings) and tightened the “quality” criteria (the returns the business has generated relative to capital employed in the past). Both Mastercard and Visa have remained in the screen since those changes were introduced. Our initial, somewhat rudimentary analysis, concluded that these businesses were just way too expensive for us. However, we revisited this more recently and we now concede that we failed to appreciate the value associated with such high quality businesses.
Visa (originally known as BankAmericard credit card program) was founded in 1958 by Bank of America (BofA). It was the first card to offer consumers revolving credit. Mastercard (originally known as Interbank, then Mastercharge), was founded in 1966 by a group of Californian banks to compete with it. Not long after, BofA gave up control of the BankAmericard credit card program, and became the second credit card program offered by a cooperative of banks. The way these businesses evolved ensures alignment of interests, with their success dependent on banks all cooperating and agreeing to underwrite transactions. Visa and Mastercard simply developed, implemented and maintained data matching systems to facilitate the network. Fast forward to today, and Visa and Mastercard are the two largest credit card payment processors, with widespread acceptance, robust infrastructure, and extremely strong brand recognition. They have become essential intermediaries in the global payment ecosystem, benefiting from their extensive merchant and bank partnerships as well as consumer trust. Together they dominate payments processing globally (outside of China)…” (Click here to read the full text)
A technician inserting a credit card into a point-of-sale machine for identity authentication.
Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) is in 6th position on our list of 31 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 165 hedge fund portfolios held Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) at the end of the third quarter which was 163 in the previous quarter. Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) delivered strong results in the fiscal fourth quarter 2024, with net revenue of $9.6 billion, up 12% year over year, and EPS rising by 16%. While we acknowledge the potential of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) 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 Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) and shared the list of Wells Fargo’s top technology stocks that can beat the flagship S&P index over the next 12 months. 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.