Here’s Why Harding Loevner Sold its Estée Lauder (EL) Stake

Harding Loevner, an investment management firm, published its “Global Equity Fund” third-quarter 2021 investor letter – a copy of which can be downloaded here. A return of -1.31% was recorded by the fund for the third quarter of 2021, trailing its Benchmark, the MSCI World Index, which returned 0.09% for the same period. You can take a look at the fund’s top 5 holdings to have an idea about their best picks for 2021.

Harding Loevner Global Equity Fund, in its Q3 2021 investor letter, mentioned The Estée Lauder Companies Inc. (NYSE: EL) and discussed its stance on the firm. The Estée Lauder Companies Inc. is a New York, New York-based makeup company with a $117.3 billion market capitalization. EL delivered a 25.96% return since the beginning of the year, while its 12-month returns are up by 37.35%. The stock closed at $335.30 per share on December 03, 2021.

Here is what Harding Loevner Global Equity Fund has to say about The Estée Lauder Companies Inc.  in its Q3 2021 investor letter:

“We sold cosmetic producer Estée Lauder, which we bought last March. At the time, the market reflected a dire outlook for retail demand, especially tourist-related; however, we found its Chinese business attractive and admired its agility across social media and other digital channels. As the stock has appreciated, the resulting valuation now leaves no room for error, such as a potential shift of Chinese consumers’ tastes away from US brands.”

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Based on our calculations, The Estée Lauder Companies Inc. (NYSE: EL) was not able to clinch a spot in our list of the 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. EL was in 49 hedge fund portfolios at the end of the third quarter of 2021, compared to 50 funds in the previous quarter. The Estée Lauder Companies Inc. (NYSE: EL) delivered a -1.91% return in the past 3 months.

Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.