Corporate Executive Board Will Steal Your Heart (EXBD)

Corporate Executive Board Will Steal Your Heart

Spice up your Valentine's Day with even more smokin' hot investments.

I think I'm in love with a business-to-business service company. Meet my new beau, Corporate Executive Board (Nasdaq: EXBD ) .

The stock is taking a pummeling right now, losing 34% of its value last week. Phellow Phool Philip Durell loves the Board too. He thought the shares already looked temptingly cheap in mid-December, and that was 36% ago, folks.

It's easy to find more suitors eager to land a date with this company. It is, after all, one of those rare companies that have gotten the nod from two different Foolish newsletters, Stock Advisor being the other one since way back in 2002. It's an august band that puts CEB shoulder-to-shoulder with supremely respectable stocks like Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK-A ) (NYSE: BRK-B ) , UnitedHealth (NYSE: UNH ) , and Moody's (NYSE: MCO ) . There's a lot to love in that reputable bunch of businesses.

That's kind of the point. CEB hangs out with these guys in the real world as well, not just on newsletter scorecards, by selling them expensive seashells full of business advice by the seashore. Over 80% of the Fortune 500 subscribe to these services. The opportunities are outgrowing the share price, and CEO Tom Monahan sees a $5 billion addressable market of which the company only holds about 11% at current run-rates.

I can't speak for our distinguished newsletter analyst teams -- if you want their opinion, you'll need one of their free 30-day trial passes -- but I have to say that this crazy market keeps outdoing itself. In that ancient original Stock Advisor recommendation, Tom Gardner liked CEB for its unique subscription service, "loads of cash," and healthy growth across the board. He could have said that today, and it'd sound fresh and lovely to my ears.

Not only that, but the company is not resting on its considerable laurels. Last year, CEB launched a networking forum where each of its 3,700 customer organizations can ask each other for best-practices advice -- directly or anonymously. That's a value-added offering that can help customers get the solutions they need at very little cost to CEB, and without launching any big research projects. That's handy if a subscriber can't find the best practices they need in the massive database of 300,000 business cases already covered.

She's both cheap and beautiful. That's one in a million, Fool!

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Berkshire Hathaway, Corporate Executive Board, and UnitedHealth -- are all Motley Fool Stock Advisor picks and Motley Fool Inside Value recommendations. The Fool even owns a bit of Berkshire.

Fool contributor Anders Bylund holds no position in any of the companies discussed here, and will remain forlorn for at least a fortnight. That's thanks to our stern mistress, Ms. Foolish disclosure, who won't let Anders get away with anything fun and flirty like that. You can check out Anders' holdings if you like.

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