We recently published a list of Jim Cramer is Watching These 8 Stocks. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Paychex, Inc. (NASDAQ:PAYX) stands against other stocks that Jim Cramer is watching.
Jim Cramer, the host of Mad Money, recently highlighted a surge in merger activity, pointing out that we’ve seen a significant uptick in deals over the past few days. He explained that this wave of mergers and acquisitions aligns with what he’s been predicting, a shift in M&A activity due to the change in administration.
Cramer noted that under the Biden administration, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Justice Department’s antitrust division have been very strict on mergers, often taking an aggressive stance against any form of corporate consolidation. According to Cramer, companies had grown increasingly reluctant to pursue mergers under Biden’s regulatory approach, as they faced the uncertainty of lengthy court battles with little assurance of success.
“And that’s why when Trump won in November, it became very obvious that we were looking at a deluge of M&A deals and these companies couldn’t even bring themselves to wait for inauguration day.”
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“Alright, so what do we make of this wave of deals? First, I gotta say, it’s just nice to see some mergers again and while this deluge was widely anticipated because of the change in administrations, it’s still good to see some confirmation.”
Cramer said it made him more confident in predicting that M&A deals will continue to increase, which is one reason why he recently added Goldman Sachs stock to his Charitable Trust portfolio as it has a major M&A advisory business that had been relatively dormant under the previous administration. He urged investors to consider buying the stock, noting that it’s an excellent opportunity.
More generally, Cramer expressed satisfaction in seeing so many companies once again pursuing mergers that make sense for their businesses. When examining the deals announced in early January, Cramer pointed out that while some of these deals might have faced challenges under Biden’s administration, most appear justifiable.
“So the bottom line: Gotta tell you, I’m just glad we’re back to a place where reasonable arguments like this will be considered fairly by the antitrust regulators rather than the situation we had under Biden where every takeover is considered anti-competitive until proven otherwise.
That’s very good news for the whole market, as lots of stocks will be going away. Given that we have so few IPOs, there won’t be a lot of new stock to replace it and a supply shortage, well, that is always good news for investors.”
Our Methodology
For this article, we compiled a list of 8 stocks that were discussed by Jim Cramer during the episode of Mad Money on January 8. We listed the stocks in the order that Cramer mentioned them. We also provided hedge fund sentiment for each stock as of the third quarter of 2024, which was taken from Insider Monkey’s database of 900 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).
A man in a suit presenting HR Solutions to a satisfied corporate client.
Paychex, Inc. (NASDAQ:PAYX)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 20
Cramer expressed fondness for Paychex, Inc. (NASDAQ:PAYX) and discussed its acquisition of Paycor HCM, Inc.
“Then a little later on Tuesday morning, Cramer fave Paychex, the payroll processor and payer and provider of outsourced human capital management solutions, announced that it’s acquiring rival software vendor Paycor HCM for $4.1 billion. I like this Paycor. Again, they’re rolling up the human capital management software space and Paycor gives them additional scale to broaden their offerings… Looking at the transactions we’ve seen just this week, while some of them likely would’ve been challenged by Biden’s ideologically driven regulators, most of them seem pretty justifiable. All of them make great business sense…
Paychex is also gaining scale in the industry with the Paycor HCM deal. I suspect that Biden administrators, this one could draw some antitrust attention. They’re going to take a good hard look at this deal, but I can’t see why this kind of takeover should be blocked.”
Paychex (NASDAQ:PAYX) is a provider of integrated human capital management solutions, offering services such as payroll, HR, benefits, insurance, and retirement plan administration, primarily targeting small to medium-sized businesses. On January 7, the company announced a definitive agreement to acquire Paycor HCM, Inc. in an all-cash transaction valued at $4.1 billion, or $22.50 per share.
According to CEO John Gibson, the acquisition of Paycor is complementary to Paychex’s offerings and will add to the company’s capabilities in serving larger businesses, expand its suite of AI-driven HR technology, and create new opportunities for long-term growth. The acquisition marks the largest deal for the company and the transaction is expected to close in the first half of 2025.
Paychex (NASDAQ:PAYX) expects that the deal will generate run-rate cost synergies exceeding $80 million in the near term, with significant potential for revenue synergies over the following years. While the acquisition is expected to be neutral to slightly accretive to adjusted diluted earnings per share in the first fiscal year after closing, it is anticipated to become accretive in the second fiscal year and beyond.
Overall, PAYX ranks 4th on our list of stocks that Jim Cramer is watching. While we acknowledge the potential of PAYX as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and doing so within a shorter time frame. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than PAYX 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.