Brown Capital Management, an investment management company, released its “The Brown Capital Management International All-Company Strategy” second quarter 2025 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. The second quarter started with Liberation Day on April 2, which resulted in a global stock market sell-off. Later, the stock market rallied following a 90-day tariff reprieve. In this environment, international stocks in particular skyrocketed, with the MSCI ACWI ex US index up 12.30% and the MSCI EAFE index up 12.07%. The strategy outperformed both international equity indexes this quarter. In addition, check the fund’s top five holdings to know its best picks in 2025.
In its second-quarter 2025 investor letter, The Brown Capital Management International All-Company Strategy highlighted stocks such as ICON Public Limited Company (NASDAQ:ICLR). Headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, ICON Public Limited Company (NASDAQ:ICLR) is a clinical research organization. The one-month return of ICON Public Limited Company (NASDAQ:ICLR) was -8.66%, and its shares lost 43.09% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On September 25, 2025, ICON Public Limited Company (NASDAQ:ICLR) stock closed at $162.53 per share, with a market capitalization of $12.64 billion.
The Brown Capital Management International All-Company Strategy stated the following regarding ICON Public Limited Company (NASDAQ:ICLR) in its second quarter 2025 investor letter:
“ICON Public Limited Company (NASDAQ:ICLR) is an Ireland-domiciled global provider of outsourced development and commercialization services to pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical-device companies. ICON is one of the largest providers of clinical-trial and related services to support the development of new medicines and devices. Services include the management of clinical trials across all phases (I to IV) needed to collect and analyze data, establishing product efficacy and safety for regulatory filings, bioanalytical and clinical lab services, data analytics and technology for trial design, regulatory consulting and marketing strategies. We have owned ICON in the International All Company strategy for more than a decade.
Icon was also a leading detractor in the March quarter. Weak earnings results and an uncertain outlook again drove underperformance in the June quarter. Top-line growth declined 4% year-over-year and earnings per share contracted 15.6%. Management also revised its revenue guidance for the year from flattish growth at the midpoint of the range to -4% at the midpoint. While ICON continues to solidify its position as one of the top three contract research organizations (CROs), there is significant near-term uncertainty surrounding the industry. Among the unknowns are the Inflation Reduction Act’s impact on ICON’s drug company customers, changing U.S. Food and Drug Administration policies, and fluctuating governmental and industry funding. We still believe that the company can return to 7% to 10% revenue growth and 10% to 14% earnings per share growth, but the current industry uncertainty makes it a low probability that it will meet these growth ranges over the next 12 to 24 months.”
ICON Public Limited Company (NASDAQ:ICLR) is not on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 42 hedge fund portfolios held ICON Public Limited Company (NASDAQ:ICLR) at the end of the second quarter, which was 44 in the previous quarter. ICON Public Limited Company (NASDAQ:ICLR) reported revenue of $2.017 billion in Q2 2025, representing a year-on-year decrease of 4.8%. While we acknowledge the risk and potential of ICON Public Limited Company (NASDAQ:ICLR) as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and doing so within a shorter time frame. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than ICON Public Limited Company (NASDAQ:ICLR) and that has 10,000% upside potential, check out our report about this cheapest AI stock.
In another article, we covered ICON Public Limited Company (NASDAQ:ICLR) and shared the list of best cheap stocks to buy for beginners. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q2 2025 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.
