What Happened To The Top Ten Multibaggers Of The Last Decade?

Tue 8:21am by Edward Croft

17 comments 1432 reads

Multibaggers. These are the stocks we all dream of owning. A single multibagger can make up for a whole portfolio’s worth of mistakes, and without one, beating the market becomes much harder.

Back in 2023, on the ten-year anniversary of the StockRanks, we posed a simple but fascinating question:

What lessons could we learn from the top ten multibaggers of the last decade?

It led to one of the most satisfying deep research projects we’ve done here at Stockopedia, and a cascade of analysis and insight, bundled into our Multibagger Masterclasses.

We limited the search to British stocks - and they really were a British bunch.

Rather reserved in their performance (no hundred baggers like we see in America) and not a single technology stock amongst them. But they still managed an average 1000% performance between them over a ten year period.

But what’s happened since?

A couple of years on, I began to wonder what’s happened since?

I’d noticed that one or two had stumbled, but only when I ran the numbers did I realise just how poorly the group has fared since the study end in April 2023.

The average performance since has been -8.4%. This compares very unfavourably with a FTSE All Share that’s risen 14% in the same timeframe.

To catch up with the market, they’d need to rally 20% from here.

Six of the ten have been losers. Only four have risen. Games Workshop (LON:GAW) continues to perform brilliantly, but YouGov (LON:YOU) , JD Sports Fashion (LON:JD.) and CVS (LON:CVSG) have seriously disappointed.

Mean reversion is very real, and very ruthless.

Why the reversal?

It’s worth going back to what made these stocks multibag in the first place.

At the start of their journeys, these shares had an average ValueRank of 77 - in other words, they were inexpensive.

As their sales grew, and profits and margins expanded, their QualityRanks rose, and the market re-rated them.

But by 2023, the average ValueRank had dropped to just 23. In short - they got expensive.

Since then, there has been a further slide in the numbers. Profitability has weakened across the ten. Earnings momentum has suffered,…

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ChrisW

Tue 8:32am

And when you do the video on selling, please ensure that all those "quality" investors, who did very well as interest rates declined, get to see it.

Terry Smith, Baillie Gifford, Lindsell Train etc

Each held good companies that got rerated, probably thought they had found the silver bullet of investing, and forgot that valuation does matter!

Spender71

Tue 9:52am

Thanks Ed. I suppose most investors look forward not back and perhaps do not learn lessons from the past so these hindsight viewpoints are great. A review of selling principles would be timely after the recent mini bull run.

Paul2148

Tue 10:07am

Great reminder of the video series, prompting me to rewatch these.

Rusty2

Tue 10:43am

Even Games Workshop (LON:GAW) had a considerable fall in 2021/2, shares went down from nearly 12,000p to 5,900p.

It is looking quite expensive now. Last September it had a V score of 22, shares were 10,620p.

It is interesting, because quite a few of top trending momentum stocks, have low value scores, when to sell can be tricky. I'm tempted to sell some Rolls-Royce Holdings (LON:RR.) BAE Systems (LON:BA.) Games Workshop (LON:GAW) etc.

BattleOfBrit

Very interesting.

I think this highlights the very different situation between investing in a broad index vs individual stocks. It's the same in the US, where if you invested in the S&P500 over a long period of time you did very nicely indeed, but if you'd invested in a frozen snapshot of the index, from 20 years ago, you would have done very poorly.

Mark Carter

Tue 11:03am

"We are sort of brainwashed by Warren Buffett’s success into thinking this is what we should all be doing."

I'm with you, Ed! Like you, I believe that diversification is important. Yeah yeah, sure sure, diversification is the arbitrage of ignorance and all that; but the truth is that no-one really knows what will happen in the future, so you have to hedge your bets.

You also increase your chances of picking the big winner.

My other problem with Buffett is that he makes for excellent soundbites, but those soundbites need a more nuanced interpretation. Like "Rule 1 : Don't lose money and rule 2: see rule 1".

Except, sure, but no-one knows how to do that. Buffett has made plenty of duff calls. It's just the nature of the game. Even gilts carry risk of capital loss if you want to sell them early. So what does "don't lose money" really mean?

Howard Marks is a better writer than Buffett. He is much more nuanced in what he says, but doesn't attract all the starry-eyed adoration that Buffett has. What Marks said was far more sensible: "the job of investing is to intelligently bear risk."

So that's my little rant against Buffett for now.

Oh, one more thing ... a guy on Twitter (he looks fairly knowledgeable) somewhat facetiously put together a "bombed out portfolio" the other day. I said to him that he should definitely track it. The implication being that it might actually outperform the index.

Tue 11:38am

FWIW, I hold RNWH, FOUR and CVSG from the list.

I'm doing pretty well in RNWH. I topped up in Feb 2025, and seen a 23% rise since then (about the same has my first purchase in Apr 2023. So not too shabby.

CVSG: I'm up nearly 30% from Oct 2024. So, again, not so bad. There was a lot of fuss from the CMA which drove down the share price. It's the sort of the situation where one has to take a view, with no guarantee of it being right.

FOUR turned out not to be so great for me. I'm down 40% on that. Ouch. Annoying Orange saw to that. The fwd PE is 13.8, with a divvie yield of 4.8%. I'm looking to top up at some point. This is another situation where one has to take a view. Do you think it is temporary, or is there a permanent shift? I think the former. In fact, arguably, tough conditions favour strong companies in a sector relative to weaker companies.

I think one thing it does show is that valuations are important. Sure, with some companies like EXPN they are expensive and stay expensive. But one has to be careful. There can be many bumps along the way.

SCI20

Tue 11:46am

A polite reminder to all contributors to use @ preceding the ticker code eg @ EXPN which converts to Experian (LON:EXPN) which allows immediate recognition of the company name and an instant link to the stock report.

intuitive6191

Tue 12:41pm

Buffett is often quoted as a guiding light for private investors however, much of what he does cannot be replicated by private investors.

Furthermore the performance of Berkshire Hathaway has under performed gold over 20 year periods in recent years - which perhaps illustrates there is a limit to the BH formula of investing.

https://bmg-group.com/gold-out...

Another factor which cannot be dismissed is the law of compounding. The two principle founders of BH , one lived to 99 and other (still going strong) at 94. Any modest compounding rate is going to look good with this longevity.

Not dismissing the considerable business acumen of Mr Buffett, it is just that the average investor will find it difficult to use his skills as a template for investing.

rmillaree

Tue 1:53pm

Buffett

Has buffet not bought decent companies at decent prices and presumably mostly avoided the dross - or sold out quickly at the first sign of trouble perhaps?

I know he held Tesco for a while and cashed pronto before troubles arrived in i think he has bought and sold apple preumably at decent profit and preumbaly made a killing out of aiding banks when they are short of cash.

Any modest compounding rate is going to look good with this longevity.

seems insanity if he has made 19% pa compounded return to say anything other than what he does works well and should not in any manner be knocked. I suggest as he plows his own fourough its not fair to compare against the best perfoming asset classes over the last 20 years - as you are very much cheery picking your comparison against teh best of the best.

returning 19% compounded per year should do great job for anyone adding capital regualrly.

it is just that the average investor will find it difficult to use his skills as a template for investing.

huh why ? you can just buy his company and or try and try and follow him into the material trades he does. Perhaps he has outperformed on areas where others cant copy (without buying the company)

past performance is no guide to the future but i suspect over the next 10 years if you buy his company or copy his holdings you probably will get a decent average return even if its not best in class.

Hey ho we dont know the future , perhaps his replacement(s) may not match his success - i suspect his replacments will at least have been hand picked to follow the Buffett mantra.

Tue 2:26pm

I don't think he does get out quick when things turn bad, Tesco (LON:TSCO) he lost loads and admits he took too long to sell. General Electric he pumped in billions in to save it going bust. Heinz Kraft he is still in I think.

Yes he made loads in Apple, McD, Gillette. Find quality companies in their early stages.

Has he beaten the S&P500 recently. He advises investors to just a S&P tracker.

john2

'Perhaps he has outperformed on areas where others cant copy'

He has indeed. He owns several insurance companies outright, which means that he is able to use the insurance premiums paid by the clients (which he describes as the float) to fund new purchases.

Tue 2:30pm

"huh why ? you can just buy his company and or try and try and follow him into the material trades he does. Perhaps he has outperformed on areas where others cant copy (without buying the company)"

The average investor cannot use the insurance float from wholly owned companies to leverage up the investment in other stocks. This is extremely powerful

https://finmasters.com/warren-...

Some of Buffett's most profitable and low risk deals come from being a lender of (nearly) last resort.

https://www.reuters.com/articl...

By all means buy BRK.B to benefit from his skills, but it would be impossible to replicate what he does as a private investor.

Tue 4:37pm

He's also acted as "lender of last resort" in a few cases. Occidental Petroleum seems to ring a bell where he did some kind of preference share deal. This is a very specialist operation which is not open to most people, fund managers included.

Silver Moon

Tue 4:38pm

Yes, looking at Vast Resources (LON:VAST) last December who would have thought it would be worth 396% more today? I held, sold at a loss, prior to last December thinking it was a real dog.

Tue 6:16pm

He bailed out Goldman Sachs during the GFC. That would be beyond my means.

anthonyburns1979

Tue 6:27pm

Love your analysis and articles Ed.

What happened to the top ten multibaggers of the last decade?

But what’s happened since?

Why the reversal?

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Edward Croft

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