Baron Mid Cap Growth Strategy
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Baron Mid Cap Growth Strategy June 30, 2021 DEAR INVESTOR: Health Care and Materials investments and lack of exposure to the underperforming Consumer Staples sector added the most value. Favorable PERFORMANCE stock selection in Health Care was driven by IDEXX Laboratories, Inc., the U.S. equities moved higher during the quarter in response to various factors, global leader in veterinary diagnostics, software, and water microbiology including robust macroeconomic data, ongoing fiscal stimulus, strong testing. IDEXX was the largest contributor as veterinary visits continued corporate earnings, and continued reductions in COVID-19 infection rates. their recovery from pandemic lows, leading to double-digit growth in The outlook for inflation remained uncertain, and was an important factor veterinary practice revenues. Weighing instruments provider Mettler- influencing investors’ shifting preferences for growth versus value stocks Toledo International, Inc., pharmaceutical packaging manufacturer West during the quarter. Real Estate, Information Technology (“IT”), Energy, and Pharmaceutical Services, Inc., and DNA sequencing platform Illumina, Communication Services led the market higher in the period, while the Inc. also performed well after reporting strong quarterly financial results Utilities, Consumer Staples, Industrials, Materials, and Consumer and raising full-year guidance. Within Materials, lower exposure to this Discretionary sectors underperformed. lagging sector and outperformance of cleaning and hygiene solutions provider Diversey Holdings, Ltd. lifted relative results. Diversey reported Against this backdrop, Baron Mid Cap Growth Strategy increased 10.06%, solid quarterly results in its first earnings release since becoming a publicly while the Russell Midcap Growth Index (the “Index”) increased 11.07%, and traded company, with upside coming from market share gains in the the S&P 500 Index gained 8.55%. Institutional segment and strong pricing and cost management. Table I. Underperformance of investments in Communication Services, Industrials, Performance and Financials detracted the most from relative results. Weakness in Annualized for periods ended June 30, 2021 Communication Services came from online travel company Tripadvisor, Baron Baron Inc. and real estate and rental marketplace Zillow Group, Inc., which were Mid Cap Mid Cap Russell Growth Growth Midcap S&P among the top detractors on an absolute basis. Tripadvisor’s shares were Strategy Strategy Growth 500 pressured by news that competitor Expedia will expand its current rewards (net)1 (gross)1 Index1 Index1 program to compete more aggressively with the company’s new Tripadvisor Three Months2 10.06% 10.33% 11.07% 8.55% Plus subscription offering. Zillow’s stock price declined after second quarter Six Months2 8.97% 9.49% 10.44% 15.25% revenue guidance came in slightly below Street expectations. Investor One Year 36.19% 37.50% 43.77% 40.79% concerns about the potential impact of rising interest rates on the housing Three Years 22.06% 23.25% 22.39% 18.67% market also weighed on the company’s shares. Negative stock selection in Five Years 21.80% 23.00% 20.52% 17.65% Industrials was driven by data and analytics vendor Verisk Analytics, Inc., Ten Years 15.81% 16.96% 15.13% 14.84% whose shares fell after the company’s quarterly financial results came in Fifteen Years 11.77% 12.90% 12.10% 10.73% slightly below Street expectations. The company’s core Insurance segment Since Inception3 remained strong, but pandemic-related weakness impacted its Energy and (June 30, 1998) 10.13% 11.23% 9.79% 7.98% Financial Services segments. Real estate information and marketing services For Strategy reporting purposes, the Firm is defined as all accounts managed by Baron Capital Management, Inc. (“BCM”) and BAMCO, Inc. (“BAMCO”), registered investment advisers wholly owned by Baron Capital Group, Inc. As of June 30, 2021, total Firm assets under management are approximately $53.5 billion. The Strategy is a time-weighted, total return composite of all mid-cap accounts greater than $1 million using our standard investment process. Since 2010, accounts in the Strategy are market-value weighted and are included on the first day of the month following one full month under management. Prior to 2010, accounts were included on the first day of the quarter after one full quarter. Gross performance figures do not reflect the deduction of investment advisory fees. Actual client returns will be reduced by the advisory fees and any other expenses incurred in the management of the investment advisory account. A full description of investment advisory fees is supplied in our Form ADV Part 2A. Valuations and returns are computed and stated in U.S. dollars. Performance figures reflect the reinvestment of dividends and other earnings. The Strategy is currently composed of one mutual fund managed by BAMCO and separately managed accounts managed by BCM. BAMCO and BCM claim compliance with the Global Investment Performance Standards (GIPS®). To receive a complete list and description of the Firm’s Strategies or a GIPS-compliant presentation please contact us at 1-800-99BARON. Performance data quoted represents past performance. Current performance may be lower or higher than the performance data quoted. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. 1 The Russell Midcap® Growth Index is an unmanaged index that measures the performance of small to medium-sized companies that are classified as growth and the S&P 500 Index measures the performance of 500 widely held large-cap U.S. companies. Russell Investment Group is the source and owner of the trademarks, service marks and copyrights related to the Russell Indexes. Russell is a trademark of Russell Investment Group. The indexes and the Strategy include reinvestment of dividends, net of withholding taxes, which positively impact the performance results. The indexes are unmanaged. Index performance is not Strategy performance. Investors cannot invest directly in an index. 2 Not annualized. 3 The Strategy has a different inception date than its underlying portfolio, which is 6/12/87. For Institutional Use Only 1 Baron Mid Cap Growth Strategy company CoStar Group, Inc. and private rocket and spacecraft reported strong quarterly results and raised full-year guidance. After providing manufacturer Space Exploration Technologies Corp. also hampered disappointing initial 2021 guidance during the prior quarter, these solid results performance in the sector. Within Financials, underperformance of and improved outlook increased investors’ confidence that the company electronic trading platform MarketAxess Holdings Inc. and specialty should rebound alongside an improving economy. We continue to own the insurer Arch Capital Group Ltd. detracted the most from relative results. stock because we expect TransUnion to continue gaining market share in its core market, while utilizing its expertise in data aggregation and analysis to Table II. further diversify into attractive information services vertical markets. Top contributors to performance for the quarter ended June 30, 2021 Year Percent Table III. Acquired Impact Top detractors from performance for the quarter ended June 30, 2021 IDEXX Laboratories, Inc. 2006 1.81% Year Percent Gartner, Inc. 2007 1.60 Acquired Impact Mettler-Toledo International, Inc. 2008 0.78 Tripadvisor, Inc. 2021 –0.36% West Pharmaceutical Services, Inc. 2014 0.61 Guardant Health, Inc. 2020 –0.18 TransUnion 2017 0.51 Zillow Group, Inc. 2015 –0.17 Shares of veterinary diagnostics leader IDEXX Laboratories, Inc. gained MarketAxess Holdings Inc. 2016 –0.14 after reporting outstanding quarterly results. Total corporate revenues grew Bumble Inc. 2021 –0.11 21%, recurring revenues in its core companion animal segment grew 23%, Tripadvisor, Inc. is an online travel company, with nearly half a billion its margins increased more than 800 basis points, and its normalized EPS unique monthly visitors, whose core business is hotel metasearch, driven by grew a whopping 80%. The company’s business continued to benefit from its extensive library of hotel reviews. Its shares fell on worries that new an ongoing recovery in veterinary office visits, which drives growth in COVID-19 variants would delay the recovery of travel demand. In addition, veterinarians’ expenditures on diagnostic instruments and testing investors appeared concerned that the company’s new Tripadvisor Plus performed both in clinics and laboratories. We remain optimistic about subscription offering, which launched in June, would face competitive IDEXX’s ability to continue growing its revenues and profits at elevated pressures. We do not believe traditional travel loyalty programs will be rates. materially competitive with the upfront savings offered by Tripadvisor Plus. Shares of Gartner, Inc., a leading provider of syndicated research primarily We also believe that Tripadvisor is well positioned to benefit from on the IT sector, contributed to performance after reporting financial results inevitable pent-up consumer demand for travel. significantly better than investor estimates. Growth in the company’s Guardant Health, Inc. offers liquid biopsy tests for advanced stage cancer research business reaccelerated, led by its Global Business Sales segment. and recurrence monitoring, and it is also developing a test for early cancer We believe this segment will continue to benefit from a multi-year detection. Shares fell during the quarter as many high-growth companies investment cycle.