From small caps to big winners: 5 stocks that delivered huge gains

This column continues a series on small-cap stocks . The last one looked at small caps in general, and noted some historical performance.

Here, we will delve into why investors even bother with small caps, considering their underperformance of the past 15 years, their high volatility and their typically heightened financial risks.

While there are several reasons to buy small cap stocks, some of which we will look at in another column, for now we will focus on one reason: potential outperformance.

Small companies have an easier time growing. A single $50 million contract is almost meaningless to a $1 trillion company, but can be transformative for a $100 million company. Small companies are nimbler and can adapt to competitive, economic and market changes quickly. Small companies can have lower administration costs, as they are less bureaucratic than giant conglomerates.

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There are many reasons for investors to be interested in small caps. But likely the biggest one is the potential performance difference. In other words, investors will accept many risks if they believe there is big upside ahead.

Considering that, let’s see how well things can go when they do go well. While these are not stock recommendations, we will look at five former small-cap companies that achieved various levels of success and investment performance for investors. Three examples of stocks 5i Research has been involved with, and two are small caps that have started to surge this year and may be worth watching.

5i Research got involved with Amaya back in 2012, when it was one of the first companies that we issued a research report on. The stock was in the $2 range at the time, and market capitalization was about $80 million. We had met management, and thought they were solid. We liked the gambling industry and Amaya laid out big plans for how it intended to grow. We thought the stock might go to $10 a share, which of course would be a nice move. But the company became very aggressive with acquisitions, consolidating several other Canadian public companies in the gaming space. Then, in 2014, it went big: It acquired Stars Group in a giant $4 billion acquisition, funded by a big share sale at a premium and lots of debt. Its timing was near-perfect, as online poker took off with TV coverage of big games and as banks relaxed their restrictions on gambling. Amaya changed its name to the Stars Group, and it itself was acquired by Ireland-based Flutter Entertainment PLC in 2020. Its market cap at the time of the takeover was about $6 billion. Flutter shares have weakened in the past few years, but in August former Amaya shareholders (with share conversion) had shares worth close to $100. Flutter market cap is now about US$17 billion.