Polen Capital, an investment management company, released its fourth-quarter 2025 investor letter for “Polen Global Growth Strategy”. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. The fourth quarter of 2025 seemed to be like the entire year. The stock market experienced a severe 5% sell-off in the fourth quarter but quickly recovered to all-time highs, mirroring the V-shaped recovery from April lows. In this environment, the Fund’s quality-heavy portfolio faced relative performance headwinds. The portfolio’s software holdings trailed the broader market gains despite revenue and earnings growth. The Portfolio returned -2.5% gross of fees (-2.7% net of fees) in Q4 2025, lagging 3.3% gain for the MSCI All Country World Index (the “Index”). Please review the Strategy’s top five holdings to gain insights into their key selections for 2025.
In its fourth-quarter 2025 investor letter, Polen Global Growth Strategy highlighted stocks like Spotify Technology S.A. (NYSE:SPOT). Spotify Technology S.A. (NYSE:SPOT) is a leading audio streaming subscription service provider monetizing through paid premium subscriptions and an ad-supported model. On March 09, 2026, Spotify Technology S.A. (NYSE:SPOT) stock closed at $544.88 per share. One-month return of Spotify Technology S.A. (NYSE:SPOT) was 14.47%, and its shares gained 7.17% over the past twelve months. Spotify Technology S.A. (NYSE:SPOT) has a market capitalization of $112.188 billion.
Polen Global Growth Strategy stated the following regarding Spotify Technology S.A. (NYSE:SPOT) in its fourth quarter 2025 investor letter:
“We also initiated a position in Spotify which continues to execute at a high level in our opinion. Spotify Technology S.A.’s (NYSE:SPOT) business is a scaled two sided network enjoying secular growth as streaming and smartphone proliferation are now a global norm. We believe music is the most under-monetized form of digital entertainment and as the largest streaming network in the world, Spotify serves more than 600 million active users, a majority of whom use the service with ad-supported content. A large and growing paying user base of more than 250 million regularly consume content from the platform. As an entertainment destination in most users’ pockets, we see continued engagement growth ahead. Progress in adding new users, converting ad-supported listeners to paid subscribers and driving higher engagement with new offerings like podcasts, audio books and videos all enable profit and free cash flow growth. We believe these drivers can deliver greater than 20% annual free cash flow growth for the next five years.”
Spotify Technology S.A. (NYSE:SPOT) is in 23rd position on our list of 40 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds Heading Into 2026. According to our database, 121 hedge fund portfolios held Spotify Technology S.A. (NYSE:SPOT) at the end of the fourth quarter, compared to 116 in the previous quarter. While we acknowledge the risk and potential of Spotify Technology S.A. (NYSE:SPOT) as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and doing so within a shorter time frame. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than Spotify Technology S.A. (NYSE:SPOT) and that has 10,000% upside potential, check out our report about this cheapest AI stock.
In another article, we covered Spotify Technology S.A. (NYSE:SPOT) and shared a list of stocks that should double in 3 years. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q4 2025 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.
