BILL - Baron FinTech Fund Q4 2023 Shareholder Letter
2024-02-18 05:15:00 ET
Summary
- Baron is an asset management firm focused on delivering growth equity investment solutions known for a long-term, fundamental, active approach to growth investing.
- In the quarter ended December 31, 2023, Baron FinTech Fund® (the Fund) rose 13.85% (Institutional Shares) compared with a 15.54% gain for the FactSet Global FinTech Index (the Benchmark).
- In 2023, the Fund rose 27.31% compared with a 23.34% gain for the Benchmark.
- The Fund’s 10 largest holdings represented 41.0% of net assets, and the 20largest holdings represented 67.7%. International stocks represented 14.3% ofnet assets.
- We expect many of the cyclical headwinds that our companies faced lastyear to reverse and become tailwinds this year.
Dear Baron FinTech Fund Shareholder:
Performance
Table I. Performance† Annualized for periods ended December 31, 2023
| Baron FinTech Fund Retail Shares[1],[2] |
| Baron FinTech Fund Institutional Shares 1,2 |
| FactSet Global FinTech Index 1 |
| S&P 500 Index 1 |
| Three Months 3 |
| 13.82% |
| 13.85% |
| 15.54% |
| 11.69% |
| One Year |
| 26.96% |
| 27.31% |
| 23.34% |
| 26.29% |
| Three Years |
| (0.95)% |
| (0.69)% |
| (7.64)% |
| 10.00% |
| Since Inception (December 31, 2019) |
| 9.31% |
| 9.58% |
| 1.51% |
| 12.04% |
| Performance listed in the above table is net of annual operating expenses. The gross annual expense ratio for the Retail Shares and Institutional Shares as of December 31, 2022 was 1.63% and 1.20%, respectively, but the net annual expense ratio was 1.20% and 0.95% (net of the Adviser's fee waivers), respectively. The performance data quoted represents past performance. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. The investment return and principal value of an investment will fluctuate; an investor's shares, when redeemed, may be worth more or less than their original cost. The Adviser reimburses certain Fund expenses pursuant to a contract expiring on August 29, 2034, unless renewed for another 11-year term and the Fund's transfer agency expenses may be reduced by expense offsets from an unaffiliated transfer agent, without which performance would have been lower. Current performance may be lower or higher than the performance data quoted. For performance information current to the most recent month end, visit Baron Funds - Asset Management for Growth Equity Investments or call 1-800-99-BARON. †The Fund's 3-year historical performance was impacted by gains from IPOs and there is no guarantee that these results can be repeated or that the Fund's level of participation in IPOs will be the same in the future. [1]The FactSet Global FinTech Index ™ is an unmanaged and equal-weighted index that measures the equity market performance of companies engaged in Financial Technologies, primarily in the areas of software and consulting, data, and analytics, digital payment processing, money transfer, and payment transactional-relatedhardware across 30 developed and emerging markets. The S&P 500 Index measures the performance of 500 widely held large cap U.S. companies. The Fund includes reinvestment of dividends, net of withholding taxes, while the FactSet Global Fintech Index™ and S&P 500 Index include reinvestment of dividends before taxes. Reinvestment of dividends positively impacts the performance results. The indexes are unmanaged. Index performance is not Fund performance; one cannot invest directly into an index. [2]The performance data in the table does not reflect the deduction of taxes that a shareholder would pay on Fund distributions or redemptions of Fund shares. 3 Not annualized. |