Should You Hold E.W. Scripps (SSP)?
Investment management company Cove Street Capital recently released its “Small Cap Value Fund” fourth quarter 2023 investor letter. A copy of the same can be downloaded here. In 2023, the fund returned 18.33% compared to 16.93% for the Russell 2000 Index and 15.26% for the Russell 2000 Value Index. The fund returned 8.35% in the fourth quarter compared to 14.03% and 15.26% for the indexes, respectively. In addition, you can check the top 5 holdings of the fund to know its best picks in 2023.
In its Q4 2023 investor letter, Cove Street Capital featured stocks such as The E.W. Scripps Company (NASDAQ:SSP). Headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio, The E.W. Scripps Company (NASDAQ:SSP) engages in television and newspaper publishing. On January 5, 2024, The E.W. Scripps Company (NASDAQ:SSP) stock closed at $8.00 per share. One-month return of The E.W. Scripps Company (NASDAQ:SSP) was 7.38%, and its shares lost 39.98% of their value over the last 52 weeks. The E.W. Scripps Company (NASDAQ:SSP) has a market capitalization of $676.963 million.
Cove Street Capital stated the following regarding The E.W. Scripps Company (NASDAQ:SSP) in its fourth quarter 2023 investor letter:
"Our largest contributor in the quarter was The E.W. Scripps Company (NASDAQ:SSP), which benefited from the alleviation (slightly) of concerns about the general economy and ad market. It helped that the world of labor strikes – affecting the desire of auto companies to advertise and the ability to produce scripted television and movies – slowed down too. We added aggressively to our stake to make this a Top 5 position as recently as October, when these issues were top of mind, and we have been quickly rewarded. Scripps has done a very nice job of positioning itself to capitalize on the evolution of the media industry. We think “legacy” TV has a much longer life to it than “fancy talk” suggests, and despite obvious exposure to the cyclicality of the advertising business at large, Scripps is a cash gusher that is rapidly paying down debt from a series of acquisitions that were enabled under the prior administration. Pick your favorite math, but ours suggests that free cashflow to pay down debt is creating 20% annualized increases in equity value at current levels."
A closeup of a digital newsroom, highlighting the complexity of the modern media landscape.
The E.W. Scripps Company (NASDAQ:SSP) is not on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 9 hedge fund portfolios held The E.W. Scripps Company (NASDAQ:SSP) at the end of third quarter which was 10 in the previous quarter.
We discussed The E.W. Scripps Company (NASDAQ:SSP) in another article and shared Cove Street Capital's views on the company in the previous quarter. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q4 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.
