Modine Manufacturing Company (MOD): Among Billionaire Mario Gabelli's Small-Cap Stock Picks with Huge Upside Potential

We recently published a list of Billionaire Mario Gabelli’s 10 Small-Cap Stock Picks with Huge Upside Potential. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Modine Manufacturing Company (NYSE:MOD) stands against other small-cap stock picks with huge upside potential.

Mario J. Gabelli founded Gabelli Asset Management Company in 1977. The firm is now called GAMCO Investors and is an American firm headquartered in New York. It specializes in providing investment advice and brokerage services to mutual funds, institutional clients, and select investors. It is majority-owned by Mario Gabelli, who is the Chairman and CEO of it. GAMCO Investors includes two businesses: GAMCO Asset Management, with institutional and separate accounts; and Gabelli Funds. The last reported 13F filing for Q4 2024 included $9.55 billion in managed 13F securities and a top 10 holdings concentration of 16.81%. Gabelli stayed true to the principles of value investing and used a solid base created by Warren Buffett and Ben Graham, while adding some of his elements to the mix. He believes that value investing isn’t focused on short-term market movements. He looks for the ignored and unloved companies that nobody covers for whatever reason, with a good business, solid management, and a good price.

As January was ending, Gabelli joined ‘Squawk Box’ on CNBC to discuss a range of topics. He explained how the stock market’s performance is tied to company earnings, revenue growth, gross margins, expenses, and taxes, but most importantly to the market multiple, which is influenced by interest rates. These are shaped by debt, deficits, and overall confidence. Gabelli also mentioned that strategic corporate M&A was returning after a freeze caused by regulatory uncertainty and some failed deals. Activist investors are also seeking greater visibility and pushing for changes at companies. He argued against reducing the corporate tax rate below 21% but advocated for a minimum tax on a cash basis. He called for the restoration of 100% bonus depreciation, which would allow businesses, such as farmers, to fully write off new equipment purchases immediately, thereby encouraging investment in technologically advanced machinery. Gabelli mentioned that similar incentives should apply to capital expenditures in sectors like cable and referenced comments from Hans Vestberg. He noted that while corporations currently receive tax deductions for capital expenditures, these are spread over longer periods, and accelerating them would provide more immediate benefits.

Gabelli graduated summa cum laude in 1965 from Fordham University’s College of Business Administration in 1965 and holds an MBA from Columbia University Graduate School of Business. He has received honorary doctorates from Fordham University and Roger Williams University. He also serves on the Boards of Boston College, Roger Williams University, Columbia University Graduate School of Business, the American-Italian Cancer Foundation, and the Foundation for Italian Art & Culture. He is a Trustee of the Winston Churchill Foundation of the US and the EL Wiegand Foundation. Gabelli was honored as Morningstar’s Portfolio Manager of the Year in 1997, named Money Manager of the Year by Institutional Investor in 2011, and is a member of Barron’s All-Star Century Team.

Our Methodology

To compile the list of billionaire Mario Gabelli’s 10 small-cap stock picks with huge upside potential, we sifted through the Q4 2024 13F filings of GAMCO Investors from Insider Monkey. From these filings, we checked the upside potential from CNN for the top 50 stock picks that were trading between $1 billion and $10 billion and ranked the stocks in ascending order of this upside potential. We have also added GAMCO Investors’ stake in each company and the hedge fund sentiment around each stock.

Note: All data was sourced on May 8.

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 373.4% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 218 percentage points (see more details here).

Modine Manufacturing Company (NYSE:MOD)

GAMCO Investors’ Stake: $139.62 million

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 43

Market Capitalization as of May 8: $4.95 billion

Average Upside Potential as of May 8: 49.62%

Modine Manufacturing Company (NYSE:MOD)  provides thermal management products and solutions. It operates through Climate Solutions and Performance Technologies segments. It also provides data center products that consist of IT cooling solutions, such as precision air conditioning units for data center applications and computer room air conditioning & handler units.

The company recently secured a $180 million order from a leading AI infrastructure developer for its specialized Airedale by Modine data center cooling systems. This system is an AI-enhanced version of Modine’s Cooling System Optimizer that offers energy consumption reductions of up to 40%. To fully capitalize on this, Modine is making Cooling AI available as a new system and as a retrofit option for existing Airedale by Modine Cooling System Optimizers.

DA Davidson reiterated a Buy rating on the stock on March 31, while lowering its price target to $140 from $155. Modine Manufacturing Company (NYSE:MOD) now projects to grow data center sales by 110% to 120% for the full FY2025. In FQ3 2025, Modine’s data center revenues grew by 176% year-over-year. This was fueled by the acquisition of Scott Springfield, which contributed $63 million to this revenue.

SouthernSun Small Cap Strategy is positive on the company and stated the following regarding Modine Manufacturing Company (NYSE:MOD) in its Q1 2025 investor letter:

“Modine Manufacturing Company (NYSE:MOD) is an over 100-year-old thermal management company based in Racine, WI. The company started out producing heat exchangers for tractors but quickly expanded into the automotive market and became a major supplier of heat exchangers to leading car manufacturers. As demand for automobiles increased significantly throughout the 20th century, Modine expanded operations globally. However, as the automotive market matured and became more competitive, MOD’s growth slowed, and the company went through numerous restructurings to take cost out of the business. The company attempted to diversify into the HVAC industry by buying Airedale in 2005 and Luvata in 2016, but management lacked a clear strategic vision, and the legacy automotive business continued to attract most of the time and resources.

In December 2020, MOD’s board decided new leadership was needed and hired Neil Brinker as CEO. Brinker was previously COO at Advanced Energy (AEIS) and had experience working at Idex Corporation (IEX) and Danaher (DANH) – both high performing industrials (we have been owners of AEIS and IEX and think highly of their business culture). After assessing the business, Brinker decided the company needed to move away from its legacy automotive parts businesses and shift resources into HVAC. He quickly implemented operational changes including reorganizing the business into 6 business units, hiring new general managers, implementing 80/20, and divesting low growth, low-margin automotive businesses. The changes yielded quick results with Adjusted EBITDA rising roughly 80% over three years…” (Click here to read the full text)

Overall, MOD ranks 2nd on our list of billionaire Mario Gabelli’s small-cap stock picks with huge upside potential. While we acknowledge the potential of MOD as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that AI stocks hold great promise for delivering high returns and doing so within a shorter time frame. There is an AI stock that went up since the beginning of 2025, while popular AI stocks lost around 25%. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than MOD but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.

READ NEXT: 20 Best AI Stocks To Buy Now and 30 Best Stocks to Buy Now According to Billionaires.

Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.