Tom Russo's Trades and Holdings in Q4 2025

Breaking down the stocks Tom Russo (Gardner Russo & Quinn) bought, sold, and held in Q4 2025, including their holdings at the end of the quarter. All data sourced from Gardner Russo & Quinn's 13F filed on February 12, 2026.

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.

Q4 '25 13F filed with SEC

Holdings in Q4 2025

Current Investment Strategy

Tom Russo's Gardner Russo & Quinn, managing a $9.3 billion concentrated portfolio as of Q4 2025, continued to anchor its Buffett-inspired global value strategy in dominant franchise businesses with durable pricing power and long reinvestment runways — led by core positions in Alphabet, Berkshire Hathaway, Mastercard, Philip Morris International, and Richemont — while selectively broadening exposure with new stakes in Amazon, IBM, and Johnson & Johnson. The firm's characteristically low turnover belied a subtle portfolio evolution, layering in large-cap U.S. technology and healthcare names alongside its longstanding European consumer and luxury brand holdings such as Nestlé, Heineken, and Lindt & Sprüngli, even as it trimmed Alphabet and exited smaller positions in Truist Financial and Fomento Económico Mexicano.

New Investments

Amazon AMZN

Tom Russo bought $240.05K of Amazon in Q4 2025. Amazon delivered strong Q4 2025 top-line performance with revenues of $213.4 billion, up 14% year-over-year, beating analyst expectations by approximately $2 billion, though diluted earnings per share of $1.95 narrowly missed consensus estimates of $1.96-$2.01. The earnings disappointment and market reaction were primarily driven by management's announcement of aggressive capital expenditure plans reaching approximately $200 billion by 2026, which caused trailing twelve-month free cash flow to collapse 71% year-over-year to $11.2 billion despite operating income climbing 18% to $25 billion. AWS delivered exceptional performance with 24% revenue growth and industry-leading 35% operating margins, providing a positive offset, though Wall Street analysts responded by cutting near-term price targets from $290-$300 to $280, citing concerns about how rapidly the company's AI infrastructure investments will translate into sustainable returns.

• Q4 2025 revenue of $213.4 billion grew 14% year-over-year with AWS accelerating to 24% growth and Advertising revenue reaching $21.32 billion, beating forecasts.
• Trailing twelve-month free cash flow declined 71% to $11.2 billion as capital expenditures exceeded $128 billion, despite operating cash flow growth of 20% to $139.5 billion.
• Stock declined 5-10% post-earnings as Goldman Sachs and Truist Securities reduced price targets to $280 from prior levels of $300 and $290, respectively.

IBM IBM

Tom Russo bought $222.16K of IBM in Q4 2025. IBM delivered a strong Q4 2025 performance, beating Wall Street expectations on both revenue and earnings, signaling successful execution of its hybrid cloud and AI transformation strategy. The company achieved 6% revenue growth for full-year 2025 (the highest in several years) and generated record-breaking free cash flow of $14.7 billion, demonstrating improving profitability and operational efficiency. With AI-driven demand accelerating across software and infrastructure segments, IBM's strategic investments in generative AI and high-margin recurring revenue businesses are positioning it as a reinvigorated legacy tech player capturing enterprise AI adoption.

• Revenue beat forecast by 2.5% to $19.7 billion with EPS of $4.52 exceeding estimates by 5.36%.
• Generative AI book of business reached $12.5 billion with free cash flow up $2 billion year-over-year to a decade-high $14.7 billion.
• Stock gained 23.83% over the past year with software and infrastructure segments delivering double-digit growth fueled by mainframe z17 adoption and data platform momentum.

Johnson & Johnson JNJ

Tom Russo bought $201.98K of Johnson & Johnson in Q4 2025. Johnson & Johnson delivered accelerating momentum in Q4 2025, with adjusted earnings per share reaching $2.46, up 20.6% year-over-year, driven by strong operational performance across Innovative Medicine and MedTech despite ongoing headwinds from Stelara patent expiration. Full-year 2025 sales reached $94.2 billion with 5.3% operational growth and adjusted EPS growth of 8.1%, marking significant progress toward the company's $100 billion annual revenue milestone as two newly launched products (SHOCKWAVE and CARVYKTI) each surpassed $1 billion in annual sales for the first time. While the stock declined 2.92% in pre-market trading despite beating analyst expectations, 2026 guidance of 5.7%-6.7% operational sales growth and 5.5% adjusted EPS growth reflects confidence in the company's ability to offset near-term generic competition challenges with strong innovation momentum, with management projecting double-digit growth by decade's end.

• Q4 2025 adjusted EPS of $2.46 surged 20.6% year-over-year with operational sales growth of 7.1%, outpacing full-year operational growth of 5.3%.
• Innovative Medicine segment delivered $60 billion in annual sales with 5.3% operational growth while Oncology accelerated 24.8% and Neuroscience grew 19.1%, offsetting ~1,040 basis points of Stelara headwind.
• Company now maintains 28 platforms generating $1 billion+ in annual revenue and projects 2026 operational sales growth of 5.7%-6.7% despite anticipated generic competition for OPSUMIT and SIMPONI.

Added, Trimmed, and Exited

Added

Beyond initiating three entirely new positions, Tom Russo made a massive addition to Netflix (NFLX), increasing shares nearly tenfold from ~514K to over 5 million shares, making it a dramatically larger position despite the stock declining ~24% over the quarter. He also added meaningfully to Uber (UBER) (+434K shares), Ashtead Group (AHT.L) (+535K shares), Martin Marietta (MLM) (+39K shares), Philip Morris (PM) (+35K shares), and Campari (+32K shares).
What it means: The enormous Netflix build-out amid a sharp price decline is a classic Russo move — aggressively averaging down into a high-conviction global brand with pricing power and reinvestment capacity. The additions to Uber and Ashtead Group suggest continued confidence in infrastructure and platform businesses, while the small top-ups to Philip Morris and Campari reinforce his long-standing commitment to dominant consumer brands expanding in emerging markets.

Trimmed

Tom Russo trimmed a wide range of holdings, most notably reducing Alphabet (GOOG) by ~719K shares, Swiss Helvetia Fund (SWZ) by ~288K shares (a ~66% reduction), Nestle (NSRGY) by ~161K shares, Pernod Ricard by ~147K shares, and Comcast (CMCSA) by ~146K shares. Smaller trims were made to Richemont (CFR.SW), Heineken Holding (HEIO.AS), Brown Forman (BF-B), Brown-Forman (BF-A), Berkshire Hathaway (BRK-B), Mastercard (MA), Anheuser-Busch InBev, JPMorgan (JPM), and Visa (V).
What it means: The broad trimming across European consumer staples like Nestle, Pernod Ricard, and Heineken Holding — combined with the significant Alphabet reduction — appears to be a deliberate rebalancing to fund the aggressive Netflix build and new positions. The near-liquidation of Swiss Helvetia Fund (down 66% in value) suggests waning conviction in that vehicle, while the light trims to blue chips like Mastercard, Visa, and Berkshire Hathaway look more like routine portfolio maintenance than directional calls.

Exited

Tom Russo fully exited Truist (TFC) (~$428K position) and Fomento Economico (FMX) (~$317K position).
What it means: The liquidation of Truist, a regional U.S. bank, aligns with Russo's general preference for asset-light global brands over interest-rate-sensitive financials. Exiting Fomento Economico, the Mexican bottler and convenience store operator, is more notable given Russo's historical affinity for Latin American consumer businesses, and may reflect concerns about the peso, sluggish Mexican consumer trends, or simply a reallocation of capital toward higher-conviction opportunities like Netflix and the newly initiated tech and healthcare positions.

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.