After fixes, flat stock no longer broken: Cramer

"This stock has been held back, but at this point, I think the company has gotten past many of the problems that have kept it down," Jim Cramer said.

Cramer is talking about Hertz, the rental car company.

If you follow Cramer's calls closely, you may remember that in the past he's said his favorite stock in the space was Avis. "However, Avis has run up 7% since I recommended it two months ago, and it's up 50% for the year. Meanwhile, Hertz is flat for 2014." Either Avis is ahead of itself or Hertz is lagging badly. Cramer thinks it's the latter.

Lisa F. Young | iStock | Getty Images

And digging down into the business, Cramer sees at least five catalysts that could ignite a game of catch-up..

1. Pricing Power: "For the past couple of years, Hertz has been slower than its competitors to raise prices, but that was due to efforts involving the acquisition of Dollar Thrifty," Cramer said. "CEO Mark Frissora, was under tremendous pressure from his lawyers not to behave in any way that might suggest price fixing, or else the FTC might deny the merger. But now that issue is a thing of the past and Hertz is free to raise prices. It wouldn't take much to send their earnings through the roof, as a one percent increase in net pricing is worth 10 cents of earnings per share for the company."

2. Lower fleet costs: "The last time Hertz reported, the company got slammed by its fleet costs. It had too many vehicles and had to sell some of them sooner than people expected, leading to losses on some sales. But going forward, I think the numbers here will be much stronger now that the company has gotten this excess inventory out of its system."

3. Growth initiatives: Cramer said Hertz is pursuing a wide range of strategies that could boost both sales and earnings over time. "For example, the company's expanding into the off-airport insurance replacement rental car market, which has historically been dominated by Enterprise," Cramer said.

4. Break-Up story. "This company actually has two businesses, the rental car division, and an equipment rental division," Cramer explained. "Earlier this year Hertz announced plans to spin-off the equipment rental side of things, and I think this is a terrific way for the company to unlock a ton of value."

5. Accounting issues stemmed. Of all the headwinds, this is perhaps most important. Earlier this year Hertz said it would restate or correct financial results for the past three years to fix accounting errors originating in 2011. Although accounting issues are typically a big red flag for Cramer, in this case, "several tax lawyers have assured me these specific issues were very minor."

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All told, with shares effectively flat year to date, Cramer sees 5 good reasons to buy. "This stock is very cheap, and it has a lot of potential catalysts that could drive it higher. In fact, I can see it playing catch-up with Avis."

And the "Mad Money" host isn't the only top investor who sees potential. Hedge fund manager Larry Robbins also recommended Hertz, at CNBC's Delivering Alpha conference a few weeks back.

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