Baron Funds, an asset management firm, published its “Baron Health Care Fund” first quarter 2022 investor letter – a copy of which can be downloaded here. In the quarter ended March 31, 2022, Baron Health Care Fund (the “Fund”) declined 9.93% (Institutional Shares), compared with the 4.56% decline for the Russell 3000 Health Care Index (the “Benchmark”) and the 4.60% decline for the S&P 500 Index. 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 Health Care Fund mentioned The Cooper Companies, Inc. (NYSE:COO) and explained its insights for the company. Founded in 1958, The Cooper Companies, Inc. (NYSE:COO) is a Pleasanton, California-based global medical device company with a $15.5 billion market capitalization. The Cooper Companies, Inc. (NYSE:COO) delivered a -24.83% return since the beginning of the year, while its 12-month returns are down by -16.44%. The stock closed at $314.92 per share on June 14, 2022.
Here is what Baron Health Care Fund has to say about The Cooper Companies, Inc. (NYSE:COO) in its Q1 2022 investor letter:
“We established a position in The Cooper Companies, Inc. (NYSE:COO), a medical device company that is a global leader in its two verticals, contact lenses and women’s health/fertility products and services. On the contact lens side, Cooper is enjoying above-market growth driven by the company’s wide range of specialty lens offerings and the multi-year trend of users trading up to daily silicone hydrogel lenses where Cooper is under-indexed. The contact lens market is an oligopoly with high barriers to entry and long product cycles. Especially exciting is Cooper’s portfolio of myopia management products, including MiSight, the first FDA approved contact lens indicated to slow the progression of near-sightedness in children between the ages of 8 and 12 at the initiation of treatment. We believe MiSight addresses a potentially large and growing market. Cooper is in the process of launching MiSight globally and we believe it has the potential to become the standard of care. On the women’s health side, Cooper Surgical has positioned itself, primarily through niche acquisitions, to be a one-stop-shop for obstetricians/ gynecologists, and has built a strong and expanding franchise in the rapidly growing global fertility market. We believe Cooper is a high-quality, well- managed company that is well positioned to achieve solid high single-digit organic revenue growth, expanding margins, and strong free cash flows.”
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Our calculations show that The Cooper Companies, Inc. (NYSE:COO) fell short and didn’t make it on our list of the 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. The Cooper Companies, Inc. (NYSE:COO) was in 33 hedge fund portfolios at the end of the first quarter of 2022, compared to 32 funds in the previous quarter. The Cooper Companies, Inc. (NYSE:COO) delivered a -19.35% return in the past 3 months.
In April 2022, we also shared another hedge fund’s views on The Cooper Companies, Inc. (NYSE:COO) 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.
