Shift in Sentiments Pushed Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) in Q1
Artisan Partners, an investment management company, released its “Artisan Value Fund” first quarter 2023 investor letter. A copy of the same can be downloaded here. In the first quarter, the fund outperformed the Russell 1000 Value Index. Its Investor Class fund ARTLX returned 7.88%, Advisor Class fund APDLX posted a return of 7.93%, and Institutional Class fund APHLX returned 8.02% in the quarter, compared to a 1.01% return for the Russell 1000 Value Index. In Q1, sector allocation and stock selection turned out to be positive. In addition, please check the fund’s top five holdings to know its best picks in 2023.
Artisan Value Fund highlighted stocks like Warner Bros. Discovery, Inc. (NASDAQ:WBD) in the first quarter 2023 investor letter. Headquartered in New York, Warner Bros. Discovery, Inc. (NASDAQ:WBD) is a media and entertainment company. On May 23, 2023, Warner Bros. Discovery, Inc. (NASDAQ:WBD) stock closed at $11.69 per share. One-month return of Warner Bros. Discovery, Inc. (NASDAQ:WBD) was -8.74%, and its shares lost 32.15% of their value over the last 52 weeks. Warner Bros. Discovery, Inc. (NASDAQ:WBD) has a market capitalization of $28.478 billion.
Artisan Value Fund made the following comment about Warner Bros. Discovery, Inc. (NASDAQ:WBD) in its Q1 2023 investor letter:
"Shares of Warner Bros. Discovery, Inc. (NASDAQ:WBD) and other communication services stocks rallied strongly to start the year after trailing in 2022. There was little fundamental news to support the big moves early in the quarter, suggesting they were driven by a shift in sentiment or a new calendar and tax year. Quarterly results came in as expected, with advertising revenues weak as expected. However, management showed good progress on cost synergy realization, debt reduction and free cash flow generation. WBD is a global media and entertainment company that is the result of the 2022 merger of Discovery and WarnerMedia. We believe the total portfolio of content and entertainment assets should provide a compelling direct-to-consumer offering to attract viewers and the scale to invest in original content. The company will be unveiling its refreshed streaming service in April. There is a lot of opportunity, but there’s also uncertainty related to the merger’s integration and realized cost synergies. These questions, in addition to a challenging macro environment for advertising and foreign exchange headwinds, have been overhangs on the stock price. Further, media and entertainment stocks have come under pressure due to skepticism about the industry’s long-term economics. Our view is streaming is a scale and intellectual property business that will result in a few large winners, and we believe HBO Max will be among this group."
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Warner Bros. Discovery, Inc. (NASDAQ:WBD) is not on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 63 hedge fund portfolios held Warner Bros. Discovery, Inc. (NASDAQ:WBD) at the end of first quarter 2023 which was 60 in the previous quarter.
We discussed Warner Bros. Discovery, Inc. (NASDAQ:WBD) in another article and shared Goldman Sachs’ top stock picks for 2023. 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.
