Does Ulta Beauty (ULTA) Have Long-Duration Opportunities?
Cooper Investors, an investment management firm, released its “Cooper Investors Global Equities Fund” second quarter 2023 investor letter. A copy of the same can be downloaded here. The fund returned 4.71% in the second quarter, compared to a 6.29% return for the benchmark MSCI ACWI. For the 12 months to 30 June, the portfolio returned 13.65% compared to the benchmark’s 14.64% return. In addition, please check the fund’s top five holdings to know its best picks in 2023.
Cooper Investors Global Equities Fund highlighted stocks like Ulta Beauty, Inc. (NASDAQ:ULTA) in the second quarter 2023 investor letter. Headquartered in Bolingbrook, Illinois, Ulta Beauty, Inc. (NASDAQ:ULTA) operates specialty retail stores that provide cosmetics, fragrance, haircare, and skincare products, and related accessories and services. On July 25, 2023, Ulta Beauty, Inc. (NASDAQ:ULTA) stock closed at $451.64 per share. One-month return of Ulta Beauty, Inc. (NASDAQ:ULTA) was -2.33%, and its shares gained 17.37% of their value over the last 52 weeks. Ulta Beauty, Inc. (NASDAQ:ULTA) has a market capitalization of $22.492 billion.
Cooper Investors Global Equities Fund made the following comment about Ulta Beauty, Inc. (NASDAQ:ULTA) in its second quarter 2023 investor letter:
“Retail cosmetics store roll-out Ulta Beauty, Inc. (NASDAQ:ULTA) and IT value-added reseller CDW Corp are both leaders in their fields with substantial long duration opportunities to keep growing at attractive incremental rates of return. They have strong management teams who are focused on maximising the long-term value of their businesses through sensible and disciplined capital allocation. However both enjoyed a period of overearning through the pandemic, with CDW benefitting from abnormally high IT spend and Ulta seeing demand spike for beauty products as consumers emerged from their lockdown cocoons. As the normalisation of these trends produce an air pocket in demand management adjusted full year expectations and both shares sold off sharply; Ulta fell almost 30% in May, from $560 to $400, while CDW fell 25% between February and May, from $215 to $160.
Having followed Ulta closely but bided our time, RAVL has emerged here. The business continues to open stores across the US, both standalone and more ‘shop-in-shop’ outlets through its partnership with Target. The ‘Ultamate’ program is one of the best retail loyalty schemes we’ve seen in terms of demand generation. We think the beauty category is relatively recession resilient with increased spend on skincare and longevity, young people spending ever more time photographing and filming themselves. Challenges from e-com disruptors have been largely seen off (consumers prefer to buy in-store with advice and testers) while brand owners (L’Oreal, Estee) have a symbiotic relationship with the retailers and have zero interest in pursuing a ‘Direct to Consumer’ model like, say a luxury or sneaker brand might.”
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Ulta Beauty, Inc. (NASDAQ:ULTA) is not on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 49 hedge fund portfolios held Ulta Beauty, Inc. (NASDAQ:ULTA) at the end of first quarter which was 43 in the previous quarter.
We discussed Ulta Beauty, Inc. (NASDAQ:ULTA) in another article and shared the list of most undervalued retail stocks to buy according to hedge funds. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q2 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.
