Stocks moved slightly higher in June as investors remain optimistic over the benefits of a reopening economy. However, a growing number of COVID-19 hotspots in several US states has threatened the momentum of a recovering economy and created concern over the potential resurgence in recovering states. Information technology stocks continued their success from previous months and consumer discretionary companies benefited from encouraging data from auto suppliers and homebuilders.
Tensions continued to rise between the relationship of the United States & China. Uncertainty exists between key Chinese diplomats and US officials over their trade-agreement commitments. Investor attention is increasingly turning to the upcoming US presidential election between President Trump and the presumptive Democratic nominee, Joe Biden.
The Fed had signaled their objective to continue supporting an economic recovery. Both Congress & the White House expressed their intentions for another round of stimulus funding. The potential for expanded unemployment benefits, tax cuts or industry-specific stimulus could provide direct aid to households and help jumpstart the economy.
As investors eagerly wait for more news in regard to a vaccination, markets have been volatile and fragile during this bumpy recovery. We continue to use this volatility as an opportunity to buy attractive companies, which have positive free cash flows and healthy balances sheets, at discounted prices, and seek companies that can both withstand continued economic fallout from the pandemic as well as thrive when it ends.
In the Merger Arbitrage world, returns in June were largely driven by completed deals, as well as continued progress on deals in the pipeline. Notably, we have seen some spreads revert to pre-COVID levels. We are retaining some dry powder, but we continue to deploy capital in situations that present the highest likelihood of success and certainty of value.
We are seeing early signs of a return to deal making as we move beyond the air pocket created by COVID-19. The Federal Reserve and other central banks have unleashed unprecedented liquidity that should provide an accommodative market for new issuances and M&A. CEOs and Boards of Directors continue to seek ways to create shareholder value in an increasingly global marketplace, while competing with disruptors and a consumer base that is shifting online at an increased pace. This includes both M&A and financial engineering, which can spur deal activity. We previously mentioned that Grubhub and Uber were in deal discussions, which led to two separate transactions in the food delivery space, propelled by the evolving consumer environment: Grubhub/JustEat and Uber/Postmates.
Column by Gabelli Funds, written by Michael Gabelli
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To access our proprietary value investment methodology, and dedicated merger arbitrage portfolio we offer the following UCITS Funds in each discipline:
GAMCO MERGER ARBITRAGE
GAMCO Merger Arbitrage UCITS Fund, launched in October 2011, is an open-end fund incorporated in Luxembourg and compliant with UCITS regulation. The team, dedicated strategy, and record dates back to 1985. The objective of the GAMCO Merger Arbitrage Fund is to achieve long-term capital growth by investing primarily in announced equity merger and acquisition transactions while maintaining a diversified portfolio. The Fund utilizes a highly specialized investment approach designed principally to profit from the successful completion of proposed mergers, takeovers, tender offers, leveraged buyouts and other types of corporate reorganizations. Analyzes and continuously monitors each pending transaction for potential risk, including: regulatory, terms, financing, and shareholder approval.
Merger investments are a highly liquid, non-market correlated, proven and consistent alternative to traditional fixed income and equity securities. Merger returns are dependent on deal spreads. Deal spreads are a function of time, deal risk premium, and interest rates. Returns are thus correlated to interest rate changes over the medium term and not the broader equity market. The prospect of rising rates would imply higher returns on mergers as spreads widen to compensate arbitrageurs. As bond markets decline (interest rates rise), merger returns should improve as capital allocation decisions adjust to the changes in the costs of capital.
Broad Market volatility can lead to widening of spreads in merger positions, coupled with our well-researched merger portfolios, offer the potential for enhanced IRRs through dynamic position sizing. Daily price volatility fluctuations coupled with less proprietary capital (the Volcker rule) in the U.S. have contributed to improving merger spreads and thus, overall returns. Thus our fund is well positioned as a cash substitute or fixed income alternative.
Our objectives are to compound and preserve wealth over time, while remaining non-correlated to the broad global markets. We created our first dedicated merger fund 32 years ago. Since then, our merger performance has grown client assets at an annualized rate of approximately 10.7% gross and 7.6% net since 1985. Today, we manage assets on behalf of institutional and high net worth clients globally in a variety of fund structures and mandates.
Class I USD – LU0687944552
Class I EUR – LU0687944396
Class A USD – LU0687943745
Class A EUR – LU0687943661
Class R USD – LU1453360825
Class R EUR – LU1453361476
GAMCO ALL CAP VALUE
The GAMCO All Cap Value UCITS Fund launched in May, 2015 utilizes Gabelli’s its proprietary PMV with a Catalyst™ investment methodology, which has been in place since 1977. The Fund seeks absolute returns through event driven value investing. Our methodology centers around fundamental, research-driven, value based investing with a focus on asset values, cash flows and identifiable catalysts to maximize returns independent of market direction. The fund draws on the experience of its global portfolio team and 35+ value research analysts.
GAMCO is an active, bottom-up, value investor, and seeks to achieve real capital appreciation (relative to inflation) over the long term regardless of market cycles. Our value-oriented stock selection process is based on the fundamental investment principles first articulated in 1934 by Graham and Dodd, the founders of modern security analysis, and further augmented by Mario Gabelli in 1977 with his introduction of the concepts of Private Market Value (PMV) with a Catalyst™ into equity analysis. PMV with a Catalyst™ is our unique research methodology that focuses on individual stock selection by identifying firms selling below intrinsic value with a reasonable probability of realizing their PMV’s which we define as the price a strategic or financial acquirer would be willing to pay for the entire enterprise. The fundamental valuation factors utilized to evaluate securities prior to inclusion/exclusion into the portfolio, our research driven approach views fundamental analysis as a three pronged approach: free cash flow (earnings before, interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, or EBITDA, minus the capital expenditures necessary to grow/maintain the business); earnings per share trends; and private market value (PMV), which encompasses on and off balance sheet assets and liabilities. Our team arrives at a PMV valuation by a rigorous assessment of fundamentals from publicly available information and judgement gained from meeting management, covering all size companies globally and our comprehensive, accumulated knowledge of a variety of sectors. We then identify businesses for the portfolio possessing the proper margin of safety and research variables from our deep research universe.
Class I USD – LU1216601648
Class I EUR – LU1216601564
Class A USD – LU1216600913
Class A EUR – LU1216600673
Class R USD – LU1453359900
Class R EUR – LU1453360155
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