What Makes United States Lime & Minerals (USLM) a High-Quality Business?

Spheria Asset Management, an investment management company, released its October 2025 “Spheria Global Opportunities Fund” investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. The fund returned -1.7% in the third quarter, compared to a 5.6% return for the benchmark, MSCI World Small Cap Accumulation Index, and -1.6% in October, compared to 1.4% for the benchmark. The market is experiencing speculative characteristics, with high price-to-earnings multiples, and loss-making companies significantly outperforming fundamentally sound businesses. In addition, please check the fund’s top five holdings to know its best picks in 2025.

In its third-quarter 2025 investor letter, Spheria Asset Management highlighted stocks such as United States Lime & Minerals, Inc. (NASDAQ:USLM). United States Lime & Minerals, Inc. (NASDAQ:USLM) manufactures and supplies lime and limestone products. The one-month return of United States Lime & Minerals, Inc. (NASDAQ:USLM) was 1.35%, and its shares lost 15.94% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On December 08, 2025, United States Lime & Minerals, Inc. (NASDAQ:USLM) stock closed at $120.73 per share, with a market capitalization of $3.458 billion.

Spheria Asset Management stated the following regarding United States Lime & Minerals, Inc. (NASDAQ:USLM) in its third quarter 2025 investor letter:

"The largest detractors from performance included an overweight position in Hemnet (HEM SS, -12%), an overweight position in United States Lime & Minerals, Inc. (NASDAQ:USLM) (USLM US, -10%), and an overweight position in Weis Markets (WMK US, -11%). USLM is an integrated manufacturer of lime and limestone products, extracting limestone from owned, long-life open-pit quarries and underground mines, which it then processes internally into its various end forms for use primarily in steel manufacturing and construction activities.

USLM is a highly cash generative, high returning business with a net cash balance sheet. As is almost always the case, it’s the industry structure that’s decisive in giving rise to these characteristics. Specifically, the lime industry is highly regionalised, with its heavy, low value per tonne nature making it costly to transport long distances. Consequently, there tends to be 2 or 3 primary competitors in each region, as is the case with USLM & its main competitor, Lhoist, which together serve the central US and Texan markets. Whilst competing sources of lime (from say, Mexico) do find their way into the market from time to time, not only is the landed cost higher but there’s also a quality trade-off. So as long as USLM (and Lhoist) don’t abuse their privileged market position, the opportunity to continue to generate strong cash flows and returns should persist long into the future.

Notwithstanding this, the shorter-term picture for USLM will continue to be influenced by ebbs and flows in end market demand, as evidenced in its Q3 result published late in October. Strength in construction tied to large data-center projects is currently offsetting weakness in oil & gas services volumes. Price growth slowed compared to recent quarters, albeit still posting a robust +5%.

USLM is a high-quality business operating within a highly favourable industry structure. We will gladly add further to the position should the share price continue to soften materially from current levels."

United States Lime & Minerals, Inc. (NASDAQ:USLM) is not on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 21 hedge fund portfolios held United States Lime & Minerals, Inc. (NASDAQ:USLM) at the end of the third quarter, which was 19 in the previous quarter. While we acknowledge the potential of United States Lime & Minerals, Inc. (NASDAQ:USLM) as an investment, we believe certain AI stocks offer greater upside potential and carry less downside risk. If you're looking for an extremely undervalued AI stock that also stands to benefit significantly from Trump-era tariffs and the onshoring trend, see our free report on the best short-term AI stock.

In another article, we covered United States Lime & Minerals, Inc. (NASDAQ:USLM) and shared Diamond Hill Capital Small Cap Strategy's views on the company. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q3 2025 page for more investor letters from hedge funds and other leading investors.

READ NEXT: The Best and Worst Dow Stocks for the Next 12 Months and 10 Unstoppable Stocks That Could Double Your Money.

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