Polen Capital: “Pool Corp. (POOL) Continued to Execute Well on its Long-Term Strategy”

Polen Capital Management, a value-driven, concentrated, long-term investment management firm, published its ‘Polen U.S. Small Company Growth’ fourth-quarter 2020 Investor Letter – a copy of which can be downloaded here. A gross return of 29.14% was recorded by the fund for the Q4 of 2020, slightly below its Russell 2000 Growth benchmark that delivered a 29.61% return. You can view the fund’s top 5 holdings to have a peek at their top bets for 2021.

Polen Capital Management, in their Q4 2020 investor letter, mentioned Pool Corporation (NASDAQ: POOL) and shared their insights on the company. Pool Corporation is a Covington, Louisiana-based distributor of swimming pool supplies, equipment, and related products. It currently has a $14.1 billion market capitalization. Since the beginning of the year, POOL delivered a -5.62% return, while its 12-month gains are up by 82.05%. As of April 01, 2021, the stock closed at $351.57 per share.

Here is what Polen Capital Management has to say about Pool Corporation in their Q4 2020 investor letter:

"Our goal is to own great compounders that eventually become so large that they graduate from our Portfolio, allowing us to redeploy capital in promising smaller companies. We, again, realized this goal with two successful market-cap-driven exits during the quarter. Pool Corp. had been in the Portfolio since inception and benefited from the pandemic, albeit in different ways. The world’s largest wholesale distributor of swimming pool supplies, parts, and outdoor living products, Pool Corp. is a consistent company that continued to execute well on its long-term strategy with no slowdown in demand in 2020."

Our calculations show that Pool Corporation (NASDAQ: POOL) does not belong in our list of the 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As of the end of the fourth quarter of 2020, Pool Corporation was in 33 hedge fund portfolios, compared to 36 funds in the third quarter. POOL delivered a -5.62% 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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