Paychex shares recoup a bit; CEO comments about economy; analysts weigh in originally appeared on TheStreet.

At Paychex  (PAYX)  there's no such thing as a free toaster.

That may sound confusing, but President and Chief Executive John Gibson brought it all together during the payroll- and human-resources-services provider's fiscal fourth-quarter earnings call.

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"I’ve said it multiple times: We’re going to continue to be disciplined about growth," he told analysts on June 25. "That client number can be whatever you want it to be if you’re willing to spend more than the lifetime value of the customer to acquire the customer."

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"And we’re not going to go crazy with promotions," he added. "We’re not going to give away toasters and other gadgets to try to accelerate a number that you’re going to add a client that you have to service. We’re going to continue to be aggressive in driving client growth, but we’re going to continue to also be Paychex."

Gibson commented on a tough day for Paychex, which was the worst-performing stock in the S&P 500 after the company missed Wall Street's sales expectations and trimmed its full-year forecasts.

The company in April closed the acquisition of human-capital-management-software maker Paycor for $4.1 billion cash.

Gibson told analysts that "all of the changes that we wanted to make we made in the fourth quarter."

"And we made a strategic decision that given the distractions that were already out there, with Liberation Day and everything else in the marketplace, that now was the time to go ahead and move as quickly as we could to get everything done," he said.

April 2 was what President Donald Trump called Liberation Day, his reveal of his tariff policy agenda..

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"We certainly could have done it at a different pace that would have dragged it potentially into the first quarter of this fiscal year, but we made an election to get all of it out of the way," he explained.

Turning to the economy, Gibson said the company was seeing a mix of both optimism and uncertainty within the market and its client base.

"Many businesses are frozen as they wait for more clarity about a number of macro issues such as tariffs, inflation and taxes," he said. "The hard data continues to indicate that small businesses remain fundamentally healthy despite the headlines."