Magnite (MGNI) is Madison Small Cap’s Best Performing Stock

Madison Funds, an independent investment management firm, published its fourth quarter 2020 “Madison Small Cap Fund” investor letter – a copy of which can be downloaded here. A return of 27.61% was recorded by the fund’s Class Y shares in the fourth quarter of 2020, outperforming its Russell 2500 benchmark that had a 27.41% gain, but below its Russell 2000 index that delivered a 31.37% return in the same period. You can view the complete list of the fund’s Average Annual Total Returns and its top 5 holdings to have a peek at their top bets for 2021.

Madison Small Cap Fund, in their Q4 2020 investor letter, mentioned Magnite, Inc. (NASDAQ: MGNI) and emphasized their views on the company. Magnite, Inc. is a Los Angeles, California-based online advertising technology firm that currently has a $4.7 billion market capitalization. Since the beginning of the year, MGNI delivered a 33.21% return, impressively extending its 12-month gains to a whopping 581.83%. As of March 26, 2021, the stock closed at $40.91 per share.

Here is what Madison Small Cap Fund has to say about Magnite, Inc. in their Q4 2020 investor letter:

“Our best performing stock was driven by our very recent investment in Magnite Corporation (MGNI). Magnite is an AdTech platform that allows digital publishers sell their ad inventory to advertisers in a programmatic, or automated fashion.

Magnite is the scale player with lowest cost structure in a highly fragmented space. Magnite’s customers are looking to consolidate the number of platforms they work with and MGNI is poised to take a significant amount of market share and could potentially triple its revenues over time. Their third quarter results were seen by investors as validation of this thesis and the stock staged a strong fourth quarter run.”

Our calculations show that Magnite, Inc. (NASDAQ: MGNI) does not belong in our list of the 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As of the end of the fourth quarter of 2020, Magnite, Inc. was in 29 hedge fund portfolios, compared to 25 funds in the third quarter. MGNI delivered a 25.88% return in the past 3 months.