CSCCF - Third Avenue Value Fund Q4 2023 Portfolio Manager Commentary

2024-01-31 11:39:00 ET

Summary

• Third Avenue Management is a New York City-based asset manager founded in 1986 that utilizes a disciplined, value-oriented, and asset-based approach to investing in publicly traded securities.
• For the three months ended December 31st, 2023, the Third Avenue Value Fund (the “Fund”) returned 9.26%, as compared to the MSCI World Index1, which returned 11.53%.
• During 2023, the mix of positions contributing to Fund performance evolved somewhat from prior years.

Dear Fellow Shareholders,

For the three months ended December 31 ^st , 2023, the Third Avenue Value Fund ( TAVFX )(the “Fund”) returned 9.26%, as compared to the MSCI World Index ¹ , which returned 11.53%. For further comparison, the MSCI World Value Index ² returned 9.48% during the quarter. This quarter’s performance brings the Fund’s year-to-date return to 20.16%, which trailed the 24.42% performance of the MSCI World Index but exceeded the 12.41% performance of the MSCI World Value Index.

The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

During 2023, the mix of positions contributing to Fund performance evolved somewhat from prior years. Several long-held natural resource-related positions, such as Warrior Met Coal ( HCC ), Tidewater ( TDW ), and Capstone Copper ( CSCCF ), continued to provide important positive contributions to Fund performance, as did several long-held continental European holdings, such as BMW ( BMWYY ), Buzzi ( BZZUF ), and Deutsche Bank ( DB ). However, several holdings purchased more recently during 2022, also made significant positive contributions to Fund performance during 2023. Specifically, easyJet ( EJTTF ), a U.K.-based low-cost leisure airline, and Ultrapar ( UGP ), a Brazilian retail and commercial fuel distribution and storage business, both provided important performance contributions during the year. Meanwhile, Japanese gas flow control and measurement company HORIBA ( HRIBF ), an investment we initiated just a few quarters ago, also performed very well throughout the second half of the year providing a meaningful contribution. Senior research analyst, Ryan Korby, deserves the praise for identification and analysis of the opportunity in the shares of HORIBA....

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