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Aristotle Capital Management, LLC, an investment management company, released its “Value Equity Strategy” fourth quarter 2024 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. The U.S. equity market finished the year strongly with the S&P 500 Index increasing 2.41% during the quarter. Conversely, the Bloomberg U.S. Aggregate Bond Index experienced a decrease, dropping 3.06% during the quarter. The composite returned -4.09% gross of fees (-4.14% net of fees) in the fourth quarter underperforming the -1.98% return of the Russell 1000 Value Index and 2.41% return of the S&P 500 Index. Security selection led the composite to underperform in the quarter relative to the index, while allocation had a slight negative impact. In addition, you can check the fund’s top 5 holdings to determine its best picks for 2024.
Aristotle Value Equity Strategy highlighted stocks like Ameriprise Financial, Inc. (NYSE:AMP), in the fourth quarter 2024 investor letter. Ameriprise Financial, Inc. (NYSE:AMP) offers wide range of financial products and services to individual and institutional clients. The one-month return of Ameriprise Financial, Inc. (NYSE:AMP) was 3.77%, and its shares gained 44.68% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On January 17, 2025, Ameriprise Financial, Inc. (NYSE:AMP) stock closed at $552.19 per share with a market capitalization of $53.57 billion.
Aristotle Value Equity Strategy stated the following regarding Ameriprise Financial, Inc. (NYSE:AMP) in its Q4 2024 investor letter:
"Ameriprise Financial, Inc. (NYSE:AMP), the asset and wealth manager, was the top contributor for the quarter. The company benefited from rising equity markets and client inflows, with total assets under management and administration up 22%. Wealth management reported $8.6 billion in client net inflows during the quarter, bringing its total client assets to a record high, passing the $1 trillion mark. During our time as shareholders, Ameriprise has continued to execute on its shift toward fee-based, lower capital-intensive financial advice and asset management businesses (and away from insurance products). Today the Advice & Wealth Management segment, combined with the Asset Management segment, account for over 80% of the company’s revenues. This has served to unlock excess capital (of which it returned $713 million to shareholders during the third quarter). In addition, the company takes pride in its ability to attract and retain financial advisors, providing them tools and technology that allow them to be more productive and to better serve their clients. As a testament to its success, the company boasted a record 21 advisors ranked in the most recent Barron’s Top 100 Independent Financial Advisors list. Moreover, we believe the firm’s diversified model and strong balance sheet should allow it to continue to invest for future business growth while returning capital to shareholders over the long term ($11.9 billion returned to shareholders over the past five years)."