The Flight Centre Travel Group Ltd (ASX: FLT) share price has recorded strong gains over the past year, up 55%. This comes as Australia's largest travel agent navigates through government-mandated travel restrictions and the COVID-19 headwind.
Below, we calculate how much Flight Centre shares would be worth if a shareholder invested 10 years ago.
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What if you had invested $1,000 in Flight Centre shares 10 years ago?
If you had invested $1,000 in Flight Centre shares on this day 10 years ago, you would have bought them for around $14.63 each. This would have given you approximately 68 shares without factoring in any dividend reinvestments over the years.
Fast forward to today, and the current Flight Centre share price is $21.85. Those 68 shares would now be worth around $1,485.80 (68 shares x $21.85). When considering percentage terms, this implies an upside of 48.6%.
How do Flight Centre shares compare to the ASX 200?
On average, the ASX 200 has returned a yearly average of 6.01% to shareholders in the past decade. The most significant gain was achieved in 2019 when the index grew by 23.02%.
On the other hand, the biggest fall came in 2011, down by 10.84%. You might be thinking that 2020 would be on the list due to major COVID-19 disruptions, but the ASX 200 rebounded sharply during that year.
The travel agent's shares have historically moved in circles whilst the benchmark ASX 200 has consistently trended upwards. In the past 10 years, the company has delivered a yearly average return of 4.09% since 2011.
And the dividends?
Over the last decade, Flight Centre has made 17 biannual dividend payments from 2011 to 2019. Its most recent dividend distributions have been suspended due to the pandemic severely affecting its operations and bottom line.
Adding those 17 dividends payments gives us an amount of $13.66 per share. Calculating the number of shares owned against the total dividend payment gives us a figure of $928.88 (68 shares x $13.66).
Counting both the initial investment gains and dividend distribution, an investor would have made roughly $2,414.68.
In comparison, investing the same amount in the ASX 200 would have netted you a total figure of $1,881.50.
Flight Centre share price snapshot
Up until late August, Flight Centre shares were trading mostly sideways. However, during the company's full-year results release, its shares skyrocketed almost 60% in just 5 weeks.
Flight Centre has an attractive price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 7.07 and commands a market capitalisation of roughly $4.28 billion.
