Tom Russo's Trades and Holdings in Q3 2025

Breaking down the stocks Tom Russo (Gardner Russo & Quinn) bought, sold, and held in Q3 2025, including their holdings at the end of the quarter. All data sourced from Gardner Russo & Quinn's 13F filed on November 12, 2025.

Who are Tom Russo and Gardner Russo & Quinn?

Tom Russo is the founder and managing member of Gardner Russo & Quinn LLC (commonly referred to as GRQ). The firm is known for its concentrated portfolio, typically consisting of around 85 positions with the top 10 holdings comprising approximately 80% of assets, reflecting a focus on a core group of long-held, high-conviction investments with low annual turnover (averaging around 5.5%). His investment strategy is a global value investing approach inspired by Warren Buffett's principles, emphasizing companies with the "capacity to reinvest" and "capacity to suffer" — meaning they can endure short-term earnings pressures to compound intrinsic value at high rates over decades through strategic reinvestments. Russo focuses on underfollowed or undervalued global brands, often family-controlled, that expand into large addressable markets, with strong qualitative factors like pricing power, indispensable products, high returns on invested capital, reinvestment opportunities in emerging economies, and low agency costs.

Q3 '25 13F filed with SEC

Holdings in Q3 2025

Current Investment Strategy

Gardner Russo & Quinn's Tom Russo maintained his concentrated, low-turnover global value approach in Q3 2025, anchoring the portfolio in durable consumer franchises and healthcare leaders including AbbVie, Abbott, Procter & Gamble, and PepsiCo, while adding industrial stalwart Caterpillar and exiting Ralph Lauren. The $9.3 billion portfolio, with its top 10 holdings commanding approximately 80% of assets, reflects Russo's Buffett-inspired philosophy of investing in family-controlled companies with pricing power and the "capacity to suffer" short-term pressures while reinvesting aggressively for long-term compounding across emerging markets.

New Investments

Caterpillar CAT

Tom Russo bought $334K of Caterpillar in Q3 2025. Caterpillar delivered strong top-line growth in Q3 2025 with revenues of $17.6 billion, up 10% year-over-year and exceeding analyst estimates, but profitability was pressured by higher tariff-related manufacturing costs and unfavorable price realization that caused operating margins to compress to 17.3% from 19.5% in the prior year quarter. The company raised its full-year sales outlook on the back of record backlog across all three segments, driven by resilient global infrastructure demand and robust cloud/AI data center buildout activity. Despite near-term margin headwinds, the combination of strong order momentum, rising backlog, and capacity investments in the Energy & Transportation segment position the company for accelerating growth into late 2025 and 2026.

• Q3 adjusted EPS of $4.95 beat analyst estimates by 9.4%, though down from $5.17 in Q3 2024 due to cost pressures.
• Operating profit declined 3% to $3.052 billion as $686 million in unfavorable manufacturing costs and $191 million in price headwinds offset higher sales volume.
• Energy & Transportation segment surged 17% in both sales ($8.4B) and profit ($1.68B), driven by data center and AI-related power generation demand.

Added, Trimmed, and Exited

Added

Tom Russo made selective additions to existing European consumer positions, most notably increasing Heineken Holding by 855,260 shares (10% increase to $636.7M), along with smaller additions to SSP Group (+112,000 shares) and Electrolux Professional (+24,500 shares).
What it means: The concentrated bet on Heineken Holding signals conviction in European beverage brands despite near-term consumer pressures, while the additions to SSP Group (a travel hospitality operator) and Electrolux Professional (commercial foodservice equipment) suggest Russo sees a sustained recovery in European travel and hospitality infrastructure spending. This aligns with his strategy of investing in underfollowed, family-influenced businesses with pricing power in large addressable markets.

Trimmed

Gardner Russo & Quinn executed broad-based trimming across 17 positions, including significant reductions in Alphabet (-440,394 shares), Nestle (-236,173 shares), Ashtead Group (-233,606 shares), Philip Morris (-211,125 shares), Uber (-185,881 shares), Richemont (-124,323 shares), Pernod Ricard (-123,573 shares), Comcast (-112,255 shares), Brown-Forman (-109,076 shares), and smaller trims to Mastercard, DoorDash, JPMorgan, Netflix, Altria Group, Martin Marietta, Campari, and Hormel Foods (cut by 44%).
What it means: The widespread trimming across both winners (Alphabet +25.4%) and underperformers (Hormel Foods -54.4%, Comcast -15.8%, Philip Morris -14.8%) suggests disciplined portfolio rebalancing rather than directional sector calls. Russo appears to be taking profits in appreciated technology positions while cutting exposure to struggling consumer staples and tobacco names facing structural headwinds, maintaining his low-turnover philosophy while managing position concentration risk across the 85-position portfolio.

Exited

Gardner Russo & Quinn fully liquidated its Ralph Lauren position (4,100 shares, $1.1M value).
What it means: The exit from Ralph Lauren likely reflects concerns about luxury apparel demand amid a challenging consumer spending environment, or represents portfolio streamlining in favor of higher-conviction consumer brand holdings like Richemont, H&M, and Levi Strauss that remain in the portfolio. This aligns with Russo's focus on companies with stronger "capacity to suffer" through earnings pressure while maintaining long-term reinvestment capacity.

Disclaimer: All posts are for informational purposes only. They are NOT a recommendation to buy or sell the securities discussed. Please do your own research and due diligence before investing your money.