Jim Cramer, the popular and famous CNBC commentator, is airing in prime time with his financial program on US television. He is notoriously known for his predictions and calls on various investments. The energetic host of “Mad Money” with the rolled-up sleeves is highly engaged in discussing breaking news, reporting about company earnings, and of course giving his stock tips. While his track record includes both triumphs and missteps, Cramer’s unfiltered insights remain a staple for many investors. Those who don’t want to invest WITH him, can invest IN him — with a stock.
Summary and key takeaways from today’s Weekly
– Jim Cramer, the popular CNBC commentator, has turned himself into a brand, creating lots of discussions.
– Investors who do not like to invest with him and his ideas, have now the opportunity to invest IN him so to speak.
– I check the prospects of the stock of his employer.
Jim Cramer is a celebrity. Whether people like him or not, he is one of the most famous and influential financial commentators on TV.
While on social media he is rather frequently mocked for his ill-timed calls, including an inverse ETF on him (doing exactly the opposite of what he recommends), the reality is that Cramer also had one or the other blockbuster call.
There is no right or wrong, and no good or bad regarding him as a character.
This bifurcation has created one thing for sure: impact. Practically everyone interested in stock markets knows him, at least on a distant level.
Everyone must decide for themselves, whether to follow his stock tips. For those who do not want to invest with him, so to speak, since the beginning of the year 2026 have the option to invest IN Jim Cramer — via a publicly traded stock (at least in a broader sense).
Today, we are taking a look at the “Jim Cramer stock”.
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An under-the-radar media spin-off?
Before we come to today’s stock discussion in just a minute, I wanted to briefly comment on Jim Cramer as a stock picker and the wave he (involuntarily?) created.
Cramer is mainly presented as being constantly wrong, recommending to buy stocks at the top and selling at the bottom. In extreme cases, on social media the joke is to just go anti- or inverse-Cramer.
Literally, always doing exactly the opposite, and you’ll beat the market.
Earlier this year, Yahoo Finance published an article where they discuss the inverse-Cramer performance. According to the article, inverse-Cramer hypothetically returned +60% for the year 2025. Of course, this is hard to track and verify, but I just wanted to highlight the level and type of attention Cramer creates.
He’s not just on the news, but at the same time in the news.
Or even, HE IS THE NEWS.
The famous inverse ETF does not exist anymore due to the lack of interest.
It was announced in late 2022, but closed again a bit more than a year later in early 2024 — two years ago as of today. The intention behind this fund, according to the founders, was to “to point out the danger of following TV stock pickers, Jim Cramer specifically, and the total lack of accountability”.
Interest in the portfolio didn’t materialize in the end.
But interest in the personality of Jim Cramer is alive. Else, people for example on twitter, would not frequently post about him and his tips — whether right or wrong.
Admittedly, among his biggest failures that will likely always be remembered, are the calls to stay calm on Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers (both went bankrupt during the Financial Crisis 2008) as well as almost-bankrupt and later-rescued insurance giant AIG (ISIN: US0268747849, ticker: AIG).
Everything’s fine.
Shareholders might see it differently, though.
I do not want to blame Cramer for not having seen the crisis.
Many people got burned. And it is part of life, that once you’re wrong, you will likely be remembered for that, at least by certain heads.
A more modern misstep was the Silicon Valley bankruptcy in 2023.
But Cramer also had a few very robust calls which are barely mentioned.
For example, in 2018, when most of today’s genius-investors who did not even know what Nvidia (ISIN: US67066G1040, ticker: NVDA) was doing back then, he gave likely one of his best calls.
He is also said to have created the FANG acronym for the big and fast-growing tech stocks of that time back in 2013. We all know how they performed, even before the dawn of AI creating another boost. And, after having been initially negative on Netflix in the early days, he later correctly predicted that Netflix could one day achieve a subscriber base of 300 million (see here).
He was right with that.
But whether right or wrong, or what he gets remembered and quoted for — the message is the same. At best, he offers a mix of idea sourcing with a big portion of entertainment. But it is definitely no copy-and-paste style financial advice.
This applies to all celebrities or any other source, including my blog. Investment decisions are personal — and with them full responsibility.
You need to always make sure you understand the case and potential risks.
Having said that, there’s no denying Jim Cramer turned himself into a famous brand.
And this has led me to the idea of writing this weekly.
If one does not like his ideas, or just wants to have it in a focussed way, there is now the option to invest “in” Jim Cramer — at least to a certain degree.
Versant Media Group (ISIN: US9252831030, ticker: VSNT) is a newly independent public company spun off from cable-giant Comcast (ISIN: US20030N1019, ticker: CMCSA) in early January 2026. Versant owns and operates CNBC (along with MSNBC / rebranded to: MS NOW, USA Network, SYFY, Oxygen, Golf Channel, and various digital assets like Rotten Tomatoes and GolfNow).
In essence, buying VSNT stock is the closest thing to literally “investing into” Jim Cramer, even though the company, but also the channel CNBC, of course are more than just Cramer and his “Mad Money” show.
The rationale for the separation on Comcast’s side was to get rid of mature and cash generating, but sharply declining, legacy media assets to focus on more promising and higher-growth avenues. Versant is considered legacy because it owns predominantly cable TV channels. Consumers either switch to streaming or lose their attention on social media platforms. Especially younger cohorts.
This has created a grim future for those media companies who do not adapt.
What’s interesting about the VSNT setup is that it is very tiny compared to the giant parent company. It got spun off via a 25:1 ratio, meaning Comcast shareholders received for every 25 shares they owned one Versant share.
Such high ratios in many cases lead to forced selling of the spun-off entity, as investors have too little exposure which they do not want to keep as it is just a distraction. Another reason can be that the new company has no proven track record and like in this case no annual report — it will be published next month.
And indeed, Versant stock since its listing, has done primarily one thing — falling.
The stock dropped from a high of 59 USD to below 29 USD, effectively halving within a few weeks.
Speak of selling pressure.
Glancing at the key statistics provided next to the price chart, we can see that the business seems to be profitable (assuming no positive one-off effects, we’ll check below) with guided earnings per share of 7.54 USD and a PE ratio of just 3.8x. Both, the sell off and the seemingly cheap valuation for a profitable company with known brands, raised my awareness.
My initial hope was to find an unloved, extremely beaten-down stock, ripe for a noticeable recovery, once selling pressure stops. It reminded me a bit of Warren Buffett and his newspaper stocks.
But turning to Versant, one needs to know that the cable business is in serious trouble.
The US cable TV market has declined steadily for over a decade — with an accelerating pace — due to streaming and cord-cutting. Subscribers fell from ~105 million in 2010 to ~90 million by 2018, then rapidly to 72 million in 2023 and 66-69 million by 2025. Household penetration dropped from ~90% to below 50% (some estimates say 34–38%).
Recent annual losses average 4–7%.
Maybe it sounds like not that much.
But what was previously positive operating leverage, turned into a pressing factor, potentially a negative death spiral. The downward trend should continue at 5–6% yearly declines over the next 5–10 years, likely pushing subscribers below 50 million by 2030 and penetration under 30%, as cable becomes niche.
Versant in my view will likely track the industry’s decline.
This is problematic because media production has high fixed costs, being it own content or purchasing licenses — both tend to rise against a falling customer base.
The deciding factor / question is, how much of that is priced in and whether the market is not too pessimistic — offering shareholders an opportunity for the famous last puff.
Without a doubt, Versant is facing not only falling subscriber numbers, but rising competition everywhere. In other words, the decline could even accelerate.
The reason is, Versant’s business consists to more than 80% of the crumbling legacy cable-dependent assets. Linear (cable fees), on the recent pre-spin investor day were guided to experience a 6% sales decline, while advertising — which is closely tied to linear — drops even 13%.
The big hope is platforms — shifting to digital offerings they control.
The problem or rather challenge is, digital offerings are everywhere. Without becoming megalomaniac, even my blog is in direct competition to CNBC. 30 years ago, it would not have been possible to air from one’s living or working room and compete against established pay-TV providers. Today, that’s quickly set up, and here you go. Many more companies and solo-preneurs are competing for people’s attention than ever.
Versant is plagued by falling cable fees / licenses and weaker ad revenue as dollars shift digital. This could even intensify, when and if Versant’s viewership shrinks so much that ads become unattractive for the seller.
Cable’s most loyal viewers are rather older adults (65+), subscribing at 50–65% rates vs. under 20% for under-30s. This often comes along with suburban homes and a heavy focus on live news / sports — exactly what younger people spend less time on.
Versant is heavily investing into content (“programming”), primarily sports with a share of 50%. The rest goes into news with 30% (including general news, politics, and finance) and entertainment with 20%. Besides golf, the company has licenses for the English Premier League, the tennis US Open, NASCAR, WNBA (women basketball), and wrestling.
When you flip through the presentation, you will notice that Versant’s channels often compete quite well — however, primarily against other legacy names like Bloomberg in finance or Fox and CNN in news.
That’s why the company needs to move. And better fast than slow.
Over the next three to five years, Versant intends to generate a third of its sales from non-pay TV activities. This would be double the current rate. However, this leaves out the question how much the entire pie will have shrunk by then. Long-term (whenever that is), 50% is the goal.
After having obtained a general overview of the sector, its drivers, and how that affects Versant, let’s check the financials.
Versant talked about a robust strategy based on firm financials.
Estimated sales for 2025 was 6.6 billion USD and a free cash flow of a surprisingly robust 1.4 billion USD — a margin of 21%. I do not care much about the adjusted EBITDA figure.
The liquidity part is split evenly into real cash and debt instruments.
Net leverage is seemingly low at 1.25x which refers to EBITDA.
Comparing now the years 2024 and the expectation for 2025, we can see a 6% sales decline with margin pressure (!) resulting in disproportionately falling operating results.
The most unpleasant, free cash flow is seen to fall by 15% to below 1.4 billion.
Which leads us to the first sneak peak for 2026.
The full 2025 results and the outlook will be shared in early March when the company reports for the first time as a public company.
But for now, sales are expected to shrink by another 3–7%, within market dynamics. Adjusted EBITDA and FCF will accelerate their declines — not good. Especially FCF seems to be drying out really rapidly. I mean, from 1.6 billion USD to in the worst case only 1 billion USD in just two years is quite a hefty development.
Versant presented a seemingly low leverage — which at first sounded promising.
However, after having checked myself, my optimism faded. They have net debt of 2.25 billion USD. Even though 1.0x to adjusted EBITDA sounds low (and below the targeted 1.25x), keep in mind that with falling business results leverage will INCREASE — without them taking on more debt.
And, my preferred metric, net debt to FCF is more than double that, namely based on the 2026 guidance around 2x, maybe even 2.2x (lower end FCF).
The only good thing I saw from this overview (and the prospectus, see here), was that debt isn’t due until the early-2030s. So, no immediate refinancing pressure.
The debt was mainly taken on to pay Comcast a 2.25 billion USD annual profit share. This has been done in previous years, too, and the size was similar.
With likely falling free cash flow, Versant needs to service the debt quickly, respectively find its way back to growth somehow. The plan for 2026 is to repay 120 million USD, a drop in the bucket. 20% of free cash flow shall be distributed via dividends to shareholders — in my view a complete waste of money for a company that has the clock ticking against them.
It might sound more dramatic than it is.
But there’s real urgency.
Versant faces contract renewals for its sports licenses starting from 2028 for the Premie League. Sports rights have gone up in price on an incredible level — maybe you have heard about the NBA and Warner Bros. (see here).
In plain and brief, sports rights are popular — and deep-pocketed contenders are sitting everywhere. In all honestly, how shall Versant compete against the Big Techs or even bigger media companies?
Either they will lose the rights entirely — not good for sales — or they will bid absurdly high — not good for margins and profits.
In that sense, Versant is an easy pass for me.
The market cap of 4.2 billion USD and net debt of 2.25 billion USD result in an EV of ~6.5 billion USD. This is after the stock price halved. Expected FCF of 1–1.2 billion USD creates a multiple of around 5–6x.
Admittedly, not much, pricing in further declines.
However, this is not enough for me. I still see decent downside, especially if they indeed should lose one of the bigger sports licensing rights. What is priced in is the terminal decline within industry dynamics. But not big negative surprises. Versant will likely continue to trade at depressed multiples as long as they do not manage to stop the bleeding. This is currently hard to envision.
What is also rather a negative is that Versant will likely be forced to go shopping. A first deal was already announced (see here). This adds execution risk and complexity, potentially worsening the financial condition of the company.
I will tune into the financial results next month.
But for now, the “Cramer stock” hasn’t convinced me.
Conclusion
Jim Cramer, the popular CNBC commentator, has turned himself into a brand, creating lots of discussions.
Investors who do not like to invest with him and his ideas, have now the opportunity to invest IN him so to speak.
I check the prospects of the stock of his employer.
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