We recently published a list of Billionaire Mario Gabelli’s Top 15 Stock Picks. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Crane Company (NYSE:CR) stands against other Billionaire Mario Gabelli’s top stock picks.
Mario Gabelli is a legendary American investor, renowned for his expertise in value investing and his focus on media, telecommunications, and consumer goods. As the founder and CEO of GAMCO Investors, Gabelli has built a storied career, consistently delivering strong returns for investors while amassing significant wealth. He was born in 1942 in Italy to a family of modest means. His father was a schoolteacher, and the Gabelli family immigrated to the United States when Mario was a child. Settling in the Bronx, Gabelli became fluent in English while excelling academically. He attended Columbia Business School, where he earned his MBA.
Gabelli’s early career began at Lyon, Lavey, and Bessemer, where he worked as a financial analyst before moving to Tudor Investment Corporation in the late 1960s. At Tudor, Gabelli developed a deep interest in media and entertainment stocks, recognizing that these sectors were undervalued and ripe for investment. Gabelli’s early years in finance provided him with a solid foundation in analyzing companies, market trends, and financial statements. In 1976, Gabelli founded Gabelli & Company — which would later become Gabelli Asset Management and then GAMCO Investors — with the goal of applying his value investing philosophy to select, often underappreciated companies.
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Under Gabelli’s stewardship, the firm has delivered above-market returns, with Gabelli’s flagship Gabelli Equity Fund returning an average annualized return of 13% over several decades. Gabelli is an ardent advocate of value investing, a strategy pioneered by Benjamin Graham and Warren Buffett. His approach emphasizes thorough analysis, buying companies at a significant discount to their intrinsic value, and holding them for the long term. One of Gabelli’s most notable achievements was his early recognition of the potential in media companies. He was one of the first investors to spot the potential of CBS, Time Warner, and Viacom, turning those investments into massive successes. Gabelli is particularly well-known for his focus on the telecommunications sectors as well. He has invested in companies like Comcast, Disney, and Liberty Media, often advocating for management changes and strategic restructuring to unlock value.
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For this article, we selected stocks by combing through the 13F portfolio of GAMCO Investors at the end of the third quarter of 2024. Only the companies that have been in the 13F portfolio of the fund consistently for the past three years were selected. These stocks are also popular among other hedge funds. Why are we interested in the stocks that hedge funds pile into? The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletter’s strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 275% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 150 percentage points (see more details here).
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Crane Company (NYSE:CR)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 39
GAMCO Investors’ Stake: $194.5 million
Crane Company (NYSE:CR) manufactures and sells engineered industrial products. This company emerges as a prime investment opportunity for several reasons. First and foremost, as per the report for the third quarter of 2024, sales were $403 million, increasing 14.3% year-over-year, with 4.7% core sales growth. Also, the GAAP operating profit margin was 18.6%, and adjusted operating profit margin was 23.9%, suggesting the company is effectively managing costs and growing its core business, potentially enhancing investor confidence. Secondly, Crane Company (NYSE:CR) has also acquired Cryoworks for $61 million. This acquisition is expected to strengthen Crane Co.’s capabilities in the aerospace and electronics sectors. Moreover, Crane Company (NYSE:CR) has also entered into a definitive agreement to sell its Engineered Materials business to KPS Capital Partners, LP for $227 million, allowing the company to focus on its core industrial operations and enhance shareholder value.
Overall, CR ranks 3rd on our list of Billionaire Mario Gabelli’s top stock picks. While we acknowledge the potential of CR as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns, and doing so within a shorter time frame. If you are looking for a stock that is more promising than CR but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.
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Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.
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