Artisan Partners: “First Republic Bank (FRC) has Executed Impressively Through the Pandemic”

Artisan Partners, a high value-added investment management firm, published its ‘Artisan Global Discovery Fund’ first quarter 2021 investor letter – a copy of which can be downloaded here. A return of -3.56% was recorded by its Investor Class: APFDX, -3.55% by its Advisor Class: APDDX, and -3.50% by its Institutional Class: APHDX for the first quarter of 2021, all below the MSCI All Country World Index that delivered a 4.57% return for the same period. You can view the fund’s top 5 holdings to have a peek at their top bets for 2021.

Ariel Investments, in its Q1 2021 investor letter, mentioned First Republic Bank (NYSE: FRC), and shared their insights on the company. First Republic Bank is a San Francisco, California-based investment company that currently has a $33.7 billion market capitalization. Since the beginning of the year, FRC delivered a 30.29% return, extending its 12-month returns to 76.98%. As of May 28, 2021, the stock closed at $191.44 per share.

Here is what Ariel Investments has to say about First Republic Bank in its Q1 2021 investor letter:

"First Republic Bank provides private banking and wealth management services in urban, coastal markets in the US. The company has executed impressively through the pandemic, growing its loans, deposits and wealth management AUM. We expect another year of robust growth in 2021, outpacing most banks. We have a high level of respect for this company’s franchise and operating model, which targets faster-growing markets with the industry’s highest levels of customer service—enabling the company to keep customer churn low (2% annually) and grow alongside those clients’ wealth. While the company could benefit from higher interest rates in a strong economy, our thesis is centered primarily on the company’s opportunity to further penetrate its existing markets (we estimate only ~5% share)."

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Our calculations show that First Republic Bank (NYSE: FRC) does not belong in our list of the 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As of the end of the first quarter of 2021, First Republic Bank was in 41 hedge fund portfolios, compared to 34 funds in the fourth quarter of 2020. FRC delivered a 16.20% return in the past 3 months.

The top 10 stocks among hedge funds returned 231.2% between 2015 and 2020, and outperformed the S&P 500 Index ETFs by more than 126 percentage points. We know it sounds unbelievable. You have been dismissing our articles about top hedge fund stocks mostly because you were fed biased information by other media outlets about hedge funds’ poor performance. You could have doubled the size of your nest egg by investing in the top hedge fund stocks instead of dumb S&P 500 ETFs. Here you can watch our video about the top 5 hedge fund stocks right now. All of these stocks had positive returns in 2020.

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