Is it a Smart Move to Invest in MSCI?

Baron Funds, an asset management firm, published its “Baron Focused Growth Fund” first quarter 2022 investor letter – a copy of which can be downloaded here. Baron Focused Growth Fund (the “Fund”) declined 8.03% (Institutional Shares) in the quarter ended March 31, 2022. The Fund’s primary benchmark, the Russell 2500 Growth Index (the “Index”), fell 12.30% in the period. The S&P 500 Index, which measures the performance of large-cap companies, fell 4.60%. Try to spend some time taking a look at the fund’s top 5 holdings to be informed about their best picks for 2022.

In its Q1 2022 investor letter, Baron Focused Growth Fund mentioned MSCI Inc. (NYSE:MSCI) and explained its insights for the company. Founded in 1969, MSCI Inc. (NYSE:MSCI) is a New York, New York-based finance company with a $32.2 billion market capitalization. MSCI Inc. (NYSE:MSCI) delivered a -35.14% return since the beginning of the year, while its 12-month returns are down by -19.86%. The stock closed at $397.39 per share on June 15, 2022.

Here is what Baron Focused Growth Fund has to say about MSCI Inc. (NYSE:MSCI) in its Q1 2022 investor letter:

“In the first quarter, we added to our position in MSCI, Inc. (NYSE:MSCI), a leading provider of investment decision support tools to investment institutions. The company is seeing strong organic revenue growth of 20% and is generating margins of almost 60% with a healthy pipeline across new products and regions. The company has a strong balance sheet and generates strong free cash flow that it uses to continue to invest in the business and to buyback its shares. We believe this strong earnings and free cash flow grower with a robust balance sheet and free cash flow profile should make MSCI an attractive investment for the next several years.”

Pixabay/Public Domain

Our calculations show that MSCI Inc. (NYSE:MSCI) fell short and didn’t make it on our list of the 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. MSCI Inc. (NYSE:MSCI) was in 53 hedge fund portfolios at the end of the first quarter of 2022, compared to 47 funds in the previous quarter. MSCI Inc. (NYSE:MSCI) delivered a -19.39% return in the past 3 months.

In December 2021, we also shared another hedge fund’s views on MSCI Inc. (NYSE:MSCI) in another article. You can find other investor letters from hedge funds and prominent investors on our hedge fund investor letters 2022 Q1 page.

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