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 Herc Holdings Inc. (NYSE:HRI) 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).
An overhead shot of a ProSolutions employee in the process of delivering equipment to a construction site.
Herc Holdings Inc. (NYSE:HRI)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 26
GAMCO Investors’ Stake: $227.3 million
Herc Holdings Inc. (NYSE:HRI) operates as an equipment rental supplier. Herc Holdings (NYSE:HRI) is an excellent investment option for the following reasons. As per the report for the third quarter of 2024, the rental revenue recorded was $866 million, an increase of 13%, highlighting strong demand and growth in that specific segment. Also, total revenues were $965 million, showing an increase of 6%, signaling solid performance across the company, and positioning it well for future growth. It has featured in the GAMCO portfolio consistently since the third quarter of 2016, making it one of the long-term stock picks of Mario Gabelli.
Overall, HRI ranks 1st on our list of Billionaire Mario Gabelli’s top stock picks. While we acknowledge the potential of HRI 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 HRI 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.
