On Tuesday, June 3, William Blair kicked off its 45th annual Growth Stock Conference, a three-day event featuring more than 250 public and private companies. First held in 1981, the firm’s biggest annual event continues to be a premier conference for investors.
This year’s conference featured companies spanning the market-cap spectrum in seven sectors: consumer; energy and power technologies; financial services and technology; industrials; global services; healthcare; and technology, media, and communications. In addition to the formal presentations by the management of presenting companies—nearly 99% of which were represented by the highest management ranks this year, including chairman, chief executive officer, president, chief financial officer, or chief operating officer—William Blair also hosted a record-breaking 5,233 one-on-one meetings between investors and management teams.
In a special economics conference report, William Blair’s Richard de Chazal, CFA, macro analyst, highlights commentary from the event on topics such as the state of the consumer, tariff mitigation, artificial intelligence, and more.
Amidst a volatile economic environment, the conference provided attendees with a “boots on the ground” macro view of the U.S. economy from a large swath of the corporate sector. Overall, it seemed that while just about all companies felt that the economic growth environment, up to now, had been decent, they were still very uncertain about what might come next. We sensed that most companies felt resigned to some level of tariffs and had already taken the opportunity during the first quarter’s earnings season to lower their guidance for expected future revenue growth.
Overall, many companies' messages were that while economic activity is moderating and there’s plenty of caution and uncertainty, companies are finding moderate success in mitigating the impact from tariffs. Many presenters seemed to feel that guidance had already been adjusted lower to reflect this uncertainty, and unless something more drastic happened, they were relatively comfortable with their current position.
For more information on the research reports published by Richard de Chazal, please contact us or your William Blair representative.