In the fourth quarter, Sarah Ketterer purchased 1,541,690 shares of AllState Corp. (ALL, Financial), a holding that some successful gurus had been reducing or selling from their portfolios.
Allstate is an insurance company that was founded on April 17, 1931. The company is engaged in property liability insurance and life insurance. Allstate conducts business across the U.S. and Canada. It has four business segments that include: Allstate Protection, Allstate Financial, Discontinued Lines and Coverages and Corporate and Other.
Allstate has a market cap of $24.79 billion with an enterprise value of $27.77 billion. Allstate currently employs 41,100 full-time employees and 500 part-time employees.
Allstate Corp has two good signs, according to GuruFocus. The operating margin is in expansion, which is usually a good sign. The company's dividend is close to a three-year high, which is also a good sign.
Below is a Peter Lynch chart for AllState.
Ketterer described one of her main investment philosophies as going against what everyone else is doing. Many gurus such as Andreas Halvorsen (Trades, Portfolio), Jeremy Grantham (Trades, Portfolio), Paul Tudor Jones (Trades, Portfolio) and Pioneer Investments either sold out or reduced their positions in Allstate in the fourth quarter.
Allstate is a profitable investment for the following reasons:
The company has been in existence for 85 years, proving its efficient and profitable business models have longevity.
The company is trading below its intrinsic value.
The company’s earnings are above the current price, according to the Peter Lynch chart.
Allstate is a recognizable name across Canada and the U.S.
The company is expanding business process and information technology operations in India and Northern Ireland.
The company's main risk factors are natural disasters and unexpected increases in the frequency or severity of claims. These occurrences have low probability and low variance. The company has already been able to profit and build its market cap to $24.79 billion.
Ketterer and her Irish partner Harry Hartford named their firm Causeway Capital Management after the Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland. In the video below Ketterer was interviewed by Steve Forbes. When she was asked how the name came to be, her response was, “It’s a 50 billion-year-old array of vessel columns. Legend has it that giants walked the columns to the Outer Hebrides.We wanted something rock solid with great longevity as our logo.”
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Cheers to your investment success.
