What Makes Equifax (EFX) a Prospective Investment Bet?

Mar Vista Investment Partners, LLC, an investment management company, released the “Mar Vista Strategic Growth Strategy” first quarter 2024 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. The stock market experienced a strong rally in the first quarter, everything from stocks to bitcoin, and even gold, saw significant gains. Most of the companies in the S&P 500 index reached a 52-week high in the first quarter. The strategy returned +6.68% net-of-fees in the first quarter compared to +11.41% and +10.56% returns of the Russell 1000 Growth Index and the S&P 500 indexes. Kindly check the top 5 stocks of the strategy to know its best picks in 2024.

Mar Vista Strategic Growth Strategy highlighted stocks like Equifax Inc. (NYSE:EFX) in the Q1 2024 investor letter. Headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, Equifax Inc. (NYSE:EFX) is a data, analytics, and technology company. The one-month return of Equifax Inc. (NYSE:EFX) was -4.00%, and its shares gained 5.15% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On June 14, 2024, Equifax Inc. (NYSE:EFX) stock closed at $241.61 per share with a market capitalization of $29.866 billion.

Mar Vista Strategic Growth Strategy stated the following regarding Equifax Inc. (NYSE:EFX) in its first quarter 2024 investor letter:

"Equifax Inc. (NYSE:EFX) is a frontrunner in both credit reporting and income/employment verification. These data-driven businesses require minimal physical assets and boast high barriers to entry due to their established infrastructure. This, combined with the fixed cost structure of the industry, allows EFX to leverage its operations efficiently and see increasing returns on capital.

Even though the credit bureau market is well-developed, EFX actively invests in new products, expands globally, and makes strategic acquisitions. These efforts broaden its addressable market and, in our view, will lead to growth exceeding industry averages. EFX's Workforce Solutions, their largest and fastest-growing segment, holds a unique and comprehensive dataset of approximately 125 million non-farm payroll records. The company is expanding this service to address several end markets including mortgage, credit cards, auto loans, government services, and employee background checks. With EFX's leadership position, market expansion opportunities, and an anticipated return to normalcy in the mortgage market, we project intrinsic value to compound 20% annually over our investment timeline."

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Equifax Inc. (NYSE:EFX) is not on our list of 31 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 40 hedge fund portfolios held Equifax Inc. (NYSE:EFX) at the end of the first quarter which was 32 in the previous quarter. The first quarter revenue of Equifax Inc. (NYSE:EFX) was $1.389 billion, up 6.7% year over year. While we acknowledge the potential of Equifax Inc. (NYSE:EFX) as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns, and doing so within a shorter timeframe. If you are looking for an AI stock that is as promising as NVIDIA but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.

In another article, we discussed Equifax Inc. (NYSE:EFX) and shared Artisan Mid Cap Fund's views on the company. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q1 2024 page for more investor letters from hedge funds and other leading investors.

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Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.