Oakmark Funds, advised by Harris Associates, released its “Oakmark Fund” first quarter 2023 investor letter. A copy of the same can be downloaded here. The fund returned 8.1% in the first quarter compared to a 7.5% return for the S&P 500 Index. The firm is happy to have the capital compounded at 12% per annum for the past decade. In addition, you can check the top 5 holdings of the fund to know its best picks in 2023.
Oakmark Fund highlighted stocks like The Kroger Co. (NYSE:KR) in the first quarter 2023 investor letter. Headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio, The Kroger Co. (NYSE:KR) is a food and drug retailer. On April 11, 2023, The Kroger Co. (NYSE:KR) stock closed at $47.96 per share. One-month return of The Kroger Co. (NYSE:KR) was -0.68%, and its shares lost 17.79% of their value over the last 52 weeks. The Kroger Co. (NYSE:KR) has a market capitalization of $34.41 billion.
Oakmark Fund made the following comment about The Kroger Co. (NYSE:KR) in its Q1 2023 investor letter:
“The Kroger Co. (NYSE:KR is the second-largest grocery retailer in America, behind only Walmart. Although the grocery industry is highly competitive, Kroger’s scale advantages allow it to offer a more compelling value proposition than smaller peers and earn higher returns on capital. In recent years, the market has assigned Kroger a lower multiple due to concerns that e-commerce would disrupt traditional brick-and-mortar grocery businesses. However, we believe Kroger’s performance through the pandemic highlighted that its store footprint, distribution infrastructure, technology investments and strong brand all position the company well for a world with higher online grocery adoption. The stock trades for just 10x our estimate of next year’s EPS, which we believe is attractive given Kroger’s competitive positioning and earnings growth outlook. The pending merger with Albertsons has the potential to drive accelerated earnings growth and further scale advantages. If the merger is not approved, the company will have the capacity to return over 25% of its market cap to shareholders.”
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The Kroger Co. (NYSE:KR) is not on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 42 hedge fund portfolios held The Kroger Co. (NYSE:KR) at the end of the fourth quarter which was 49 in the previous quarter.
We discussed The Kroger Co. (NYSE:KR) in another article and shared the list of largest retailers in the world. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q1 2023 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.
