Cramer has a private equity trifecta and thinks Viacom has turned

Jim Cramer opened CNBC's MAD MONEY discussing how to tell when a broken stock is on the mend: you need to do something big. Viacom Inc. (NSE:VIA) is showing this by its 250 job cuts yesterday. So Cramer is changing to being a Bull on Viacom. He said he was this way at $17 on Time Warner Inc. (NYSE:TWX). VIA now needs to focus on growing profits rather than revenues. Sumner Redstone is back, according to Cramer; and he thinks that they will do another big buyback or that a private equity firm could swoop in and buy it. VIA's 52-week range is $32.42 to $43.87, and it closed at $39.98; so at $40.55 after-hours this one has already seen some of the worst behind it. VIA is still under where it was when it split from CBS.

Cramer also said that private equity has a ton of money tied up, with Goldman Sachs alone raising $19 billion. Cramer said they can borrow up to 10 times, and they are willing to pay big premiums. He thinks Lamson & Sessions (NYSE:LMS) is the one they should pay $35 to $40 to acquire. His private equity master-plan works, but he says he still only wants to look at companies if they make sense. If it was valued like PW Eagle that just got a bid it would be valued at $35 to $38 today. He said it didn't even move when LMS hired a banker. LMS only has a $445 million market cap and Cramer thinks this should be rolled with American Standard (NYSE:ASD) now that they are selling the plumbing business; and then he'd buy the Home Depot (NYSE:HD) building and supply business. Cramer thinks this would be a big powerhouse company. He said this would be a vertically integrated company that could easily be public again in 3-years.