Robert Bruce (Trades, Portfolio)’s Bruce Fund enjoyed remarkable success in the first few years of the 21st century with annualized returns of nearly 30%. Returns have been more modest – yet still impressive – in recent years. In 2014, returns were 13.68%; they were 18.95% the year before.
In his personal investments, Bruce prefers mostly small- and mid-cap plus some large-cap stocks, and he seldom dabbles in more than 10 companies in a quarter. In the first quarter of 2015, he traded in only three companies.
Bruce sold his 140,000-share stake in Actua Corp (ACTA, Financial), a Pennsylvania-based business-to-business venture capital firm, for an average price of $16.08 per share. The sale had a -0.71% impact on his portfolio.
Actua has a market cap of $591.44 million and an enterprise value of $524.35 million. It has a Price/Book of 1.4 and a Price/Sales of 5.6. Jim Simons (Trades, Portfolio) has shares of Actua in his portfolio.
Bruce added two new buys to his portfolio in the first quarter. His most significant investment was in Actuant Corp (ATU, Financial), a Wisconsin-based multinational conglomerate. Bruce acquired 140,000 shares for an average price of $24.55 per share. The transaction had a 0.61% impact on his portfolio.
Actuant has a market cap of $1.4 billion and an enterprise value of $1.9 billion. It has a P/E of 43.1, a Price/Book of 2.1 and a Price/Sales of 1.2. Richard Pzena (Trades, Portfolio), Joel Greenblatt (Trades, Portfolio), Third Avenue Management (Trades, Portfolio), Bill Frels (Trades, Portfolio), James Barrow (Trades, Portfolio) and Richard Snow (Trades, Portfolio) have shares of Actuant in their portfolios.
Bruce’s other new buy in the first quarter was his purchase of 97,800 shares of Ennis Inc (EBF, Financial), a wholesale printing and apparel manufacturer based in Midlothian, Texas, for an average price of $13.6. The buy had a 0.39% impact on Bruce’s portfolio.
Ennis has a market cap of $473.63 million and an enterprise value of $564.81 million. It has a Price/Book of 1.7 and a Price/Sales of 0.8. Chuck Royce (Trades, Portfolio), James Barrow (Trades, Portfolio), Jim Simons (Trades, Portfolio) and Paul Tudor Jones (Trades, Portfolio) have shares of Ennis in their portfolios.
Last week, Ennis announced that first-quarter consolidated net sales increased $9.4 million, or 6.7%, and declared a quarterly cash dividend to be paid in August to shareholders of record as of July 10.
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