Manning & Napier is an investment firm headquartered in New York that was founded in April 1970 by Bill Manning and Bill Napier. The firm had the advantage of learning how to invest defensively during the early 1970s, when stocks lost nearly half of their value due to one of the greatest bear markets in history.
During the first quarter, Manning & Napier increased its stake five-fold in BlackRock Inc. (BLK, Financial).
BlackRock was founded in 1988 and provides a range of investment and risk management services to clients that are in retail, institutional investors comprised of pension funds, official institutions, endowments, insurance companies, corporations, financial institutions, central banks and sovereign wealth funds. BlackFock offers open end and closed end mutual funds, ETFs and other exchange traded products. The company also offers BlackRock Solutions, which is a risk management and advisory services to institutional investors.
BlackRock has a market cap of $60.95 billion, an enterprise value of $59.73 billion, a P/E ratio of 3.24, a P/B ratio of 2.14 and a dividend yield of 2.14%.
BlackRock has a financial strength rating of 5/10 according to GuruFocus and a profitability and growth rating of 8/10 with a net margin of 28.14%.
Manning & Napier's decision to increase their stake five-fold in BlackRock could have been because the company has been growing and improving its financials. Over the previous 10 years, the company revenues have grown 12.4%, EBITDA has grown 16.6% and book value has also been consistent growing 16.6% over the previous decade. The dividend growth over the previous three years for BlackRock has also increased at 13.30%, which is another good sign.
Below is a Peter Lynch Chart for BlackRock Inc.
The father of value investing Benjamin Graham recommended when purchasing a security to have a margin of safety. According to GuruFocus, BlackRock is trading at a fraction of its intrinsic value. GuruFocus calculates the company to be worth $3,193.74 based upon the discounted earnings model, which is a good sign. BlackRock's current price is $366.38 and GuruFocus estimates a 88.6% margin of safety.
Manning & Napier made a good investment decision to add to its stake in BlackRock for the following reasons:
- The company is established with 28 years of experience in the industry.
- The company has good revenue growth, book value growth, operating income growth and EBITDA growth over the previous 10 years.
- The company dividend has grown 13.3% over the previous three years.
- The company is trading for a fraction of its intrinsic value providing an 88.6% margin of safety.
Cheers to your investment success.
Disclaimer: Author does not own any shares of this stock.
