Is ICON Public Limited Co. (ICLR) A Smart Long-Term Buy?

Polen Capital, an investment management firm, published its “Polen Global Growth” third quarter 2021 investor letter – a copy of which can be downloaded here. A quarterly gross return of -3.03% was delivered by the fund for the third quarter of 2021, versus the MSCI AllCountry World Index (the “Index”)’s return of -1.06% 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.

Polen Global Growth, in its Q3 2021 investor letter, mentioned ICON Public Limited Company (NASDAQ: ICLR) and discussed its stance on the firm. ICON Public Limited Company is a Dublin, Ireland-based clinical research organization company with a $22.6 billion market capitalization. ICLR delivered a 45.60% return since the beginning of the year, while its 12-month returns are up by 51.53%. The stock closed at $281.40 per share on November 17, 2021.

Here is what Polen Global Growth has to say about ICON Public Limited Company  in its Q3 2021 investor letter:

“We initiated a new position in ICON and then made it a conviction weighting relatively quickly. We believe it has growth potential, an attractive risk profile, and a very reasonable valuation, allowing us to achieve multiple Portfolio objectives simultaneously. After its recent acquisition of PRA Health Sciences, ICON is now the leading Clinical Research Organization (CRO) globally. Pharma and biotech companies continue to spend more on R&D and outsource more of their clinical trial work.”

Photo by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash

Based on our calculations, ICON Public Limited Company (NASDAQ: ICLR) was not able to clinch a spot in our list of the 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. ICLR was in 39 hedge fund portfolios at the end of the first half of 2021, compared to 29 funds in the previous quarter. ICON Public Limited Company (NASDAQ: ICLR) delivered a 15.12% return in the past 3 months.

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