What Makes Novartis AG (NVS) a Differentiated Business?

Loomis Sayles, an investment management company, released its “Global Growth Fund” first quarter 2025 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. In the first quarter, the fund returned -3.35% compared to -1.32% for the MSCI ACWI Net Index. Stock selection in consumer staples, communication services, and healthcare sectors, and allocations to the information technology and healthcare sectors positively impacted the fund’s relative performance. In addition, please check the fund’s top five holdings to know its best picks in 2025.

In its first-quarter 2025 investor letter, Loomis Sayles Global Growth Fund highlighted stocks such as Novartis AG (NYSE:NVS). Novartis AG (NYSE:NVS) is a pharmaceutical company that engages in the research, development, and distribution of pharmaceutical medicines. The one-month return of Novartis AG (NYSE:NVS) was 0.11%, and its shares gained 12.16% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On May 23, 2025, Novartis AG (NYSE:NVS) stock closed at $112.75 per share with a market capitalization of $227.204 billion.

Loomis Sayles Global Growth Fund stated the following regarding Novartis AG (NYSE:NVS) in its Q1 2025 investor letter:

"Novartis AG (NYSE:NVS) is a diversified global healthcare company with market leadership in branded pharmaceuticals across a broad range of treatment areas, including oncology (30% of revenues), immunology (almost 20% of revenues), cardiovascular, renal, and metabolic (almost 20%), and neurology (10%). The company also derives over 20% of revenues from mature branded products in non-core therapy areas. With the October 2023 spinoff of the company’s Sandoz generics and biosimilars division, which followed the 2019 spinoff of ophthalmologic equipment maker Alcon and 2018 divestiture of a consumer health joint venture, the company is now purely focused on innovative medicines, which accounted for about 80% of revenue and 85% of core operating income prior to the Sandoz spinoff. The company generates over 50% of revenue from the Americas, approximately 30% from Europe, and almost 20% from the rest of the world.

A holding in the fund since inception, Novartis reported fundamentally solid quarterly financial results that were better than consensus expectations for both revenue and core earnings per share, and the company provided guidance for 2025 that included mid-to high single-digit revenue growth and faster expected growth in core operating income. We believe Novartis’ narrowed focus on branded innovative medicines, a pipeline increasingly focused on high-value transformative innovations with substantial end markets, and a broad portfolio that continues to have multiple growth drivers, leave the company well positioned for sustained future growth. In addition, we believe the company is seeing the fruits of its shift in research and development (R&D) efforts over the last decade begin to materialize in the form of novel drug launches, such as Pluvicto and Leqvio, discussed below, with many more expected over the coming years..." (Click here to read the full text)

Novartis AG (NYSE:NVS) is not on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 33 hedge fund portfolios held Novartis AG (NYSE:NVS) at the end of the first quarter, which was 33 in the previous quarter. While we acknowledge the potential of Novartis AG (NYSE:NVS) 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 undervalued AI stock set for massive gains.

In another article, we covered Novartis AG (NYSE:NVS) and shared the list of best undervalued stocks to invest in. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q1 2025 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.