Making long-term buy and hold investments in the right growth shares can prove to be incredibly lucrative. Possibly the ultimate growth share in the last few years has been Domino's Pizza Enterprises Ltd. (ASX: DMP).
Anyone that invested $50,000 in the ever-expanding pizza chain operator 10 years ago would have seen the value of their investment increase to a whopping $1.375 million today. This thanks to its shares providing an average total return of 39.3% per annum over the period.
Finding the next Domino's Pizza is of course not an easy task. But the following three growth shares are ones which I believe have bright futures ahead of them. They could make great long-term buy and hold investments today.
Freelancer Ltd (ASX: FLN)
As the owner and operator of the world's largest outsourcing marketplace I believe Freelancer is in a great position for strong growth over the next few years. As of the end of July it had over 20 million registered users and 9.6 million projects posted on its platform. These projects were in over 900 areas of employment as diverse as web development, marketing, astrophysics, and aerospace engineering. Whilst Freelancer is a loss-making company presently, I feel confident that profitability is just around the corner. In its half year results the company posted a $100,000 loss on a 53% increase in revenue to $26.2 million.
Touchcorp Ltd (ASX: TCH)
Touchcorp is a rapidly growing provider of secure transaction processing, payments and data services. It counts companies such as 7-Eleven, Optus, and Afterpay Holdings Ltd (ASX: AFY) amongst its client list. In recent months the company has been expanding its presence overseas with potentially lucrative deals with Cornèr Bank in Switzerland and Change Up in Scandinavia. It recently reported a 21% rise in half year revenue to $22.5 million, with profit before tax coming in higher by an even more impressive 71% to $7.2 million. With its shares changing hands at under 12x trailing earnings I believe it could be a great time to invest in Touchcorp.
WiseTech Global Ltd (ASX: WTC)
WiseTech Global's shares have risen over 31% since listing in April of this year. Despite this I still feel the cloud-based supply chain management software provider could be a great investment. Its software enables users to undertake complex logistics transactions across multiple users, countries, and even languages. At present WiseTech Global has approximately 6,000 customers on its books, with some of the world's largest logistics companies amongst them. Its shares are looking a little expensive at 50x forecast FY 2017 earnings, but if it can maintain its strong performance then I believe it will prove to be worth every cent of its value.
