This bankable CEO should drive stock gains: Cramer
Jim Cramer believes some CEOs are so good they're effectively bankable.
"Bankable means that the executive has a vision to create value for shareholders and then consistently executes to make sure that vision becomes a reality," Cramer explained.
The "Mad Money" host believes PPG CEO Chuck Bunch is one such bankable CEO.
"Over the years Bunch has transformed PPG from a mix of commodity and proprietary businesses into a that's the king of proprietary coatings for all sorts of applications; industrial, residential, automotive, along with specialty glass and optical products," Cramer said.
And through that transformation,
"PPG's up 5% since we last spoke to Bunch on Mad Money three months ago, it's rallied 36% since we interviewed him a year ago, and the stock has more than quadrupled since we first got behind it in June of 2009," Cramer said.
And even though shares have already rallied substantially, Cramer thinks the path of least resistance remains higher.
To confirm his outlook Cramer pointed to the company's latest earnings report, which was released late week.
"The company delivered a 10-cent earnings beat on a $1.88 basis, with revenues that came in a bit light but still rose 17% year over year. PPG also announced a $2 billion buyback; that's equal to 7.4 percentof the market cap, which makes it really meaningful, along with a 10 percent dividend boost," Cramer said.
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As bullish as all those metrics may be, the number that really captured Cramer's attention was European volumes, which advanced 5 percent. "I think this is the beginning of a major move," Cramer said.
"We've been waiting for this," added Bunch during an interview on "Mad Money". "Things stabilized in the second half of last year and we're seeing volume improvement."
As Europe recovers, Cramer thinks the opportunity facing this company is enormous. "Considering how well this company is executing, I see this stock going higher. I'm a buyer of any pullback," said Cramer.
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