5 Stocks to Invest in According to Billionaire Paul Tudor Jones

3. PPD, Inc. (NASDAQ: PPD)

Tudor Investment Corp’s Stake Value: $115,323,000
Percent of Tudor Investment Corp’s 13F Portfolio: 2.17%
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 37

Pharmaceutical Product Development, commonly known as PPD, Inc. (NASDAQ: PPD) is a contract research organization that provides services in integrated drug development, laboratory, and lifecycle management.

Tudor Investment Corp has over 2.5 million shares in PPD, Inc. (NASDAQ: PPD), worth $115.3 million. The stock is one of the newest acquisitions of the hedge fund and accounts for 2.15% of its 13F portfolio. In Q2 2021, PPD, Inc. (NASDAQ: PPD) reported an EPS of $0.39, beating the consensus by $0.04. The company’s revenue stood at $1.56 billion, presenting a 55.8% year-over-year growth. In April, JPMorgan lifted its price target on PPD, Inc. (NASDAQ: PPD) to $48. Since the beginning of the year. The stock has delivered a 34.4% return to shareholders, while its 12-month returns are up by 39.5%.

As of Q2 2021, 37 hedge funds have positions in PPD, Inc. (NASDAQ: PPD), up from 29 in the previous quarter. The total value of these stakes is over $1.9 billion.

DEVON Equity Management recently published its second-quarter 2021 investor letter and mentioned PPD, Inc. (NASDAQ: PPD) in it. Here is what the firm has to say:

“…We expect the ~US$4bn of ‘excess’ free cash flow generated from COVID related business to be reinvested into high returning businesses with a more sustainable earnings profile. This is already evident in Thermo’s strong M&A activity YTD, culminating in the US$20bn acquisition of PPD (PPD US).

PPD is a top tier CRO (Contract Research Organisation) which has been in and out of private equity ownership in recent times. To oversimplify, CRO’s effectively provide ‘outsourced’ R&D services across the entire customer spectrum (from big pharma to early stage biotech). Their value proposition varies slightly be customer, but ultimately comes down to quality of drug discovery / development and accelerating time to market (i.e. ‘Return on R&D investment’). CROs must stack up well on this metric vs in-house R&D spend, otherwise Firms would simply keep the spend 100% internal.”