On Monday the A2 Milk Company Ltd (ASX: A2M) share price climbed 5% to close the day at $10.33.
This stretched the infant formula company's year to date return to an impressive 40%, vastly outperforming the market return.
While this is undoubtedly a great return, it's nothing compared to what long-term shareholders have experienced.
While a2 Milk Company has traded on the New Zealand market for some time, it has only been listed on the ASX boards since the end of March 2015.
And anyone that picked up shares on that day and held them until today will have created some significant wealth.
What would a $10,000 investment in March 2015 be worth today?
On its first day of trade on the ASX the a2 Milk Company's shares barely went noticed. They opened the day at 56 cents, before closing it at the same level. Two weeks later its shares had dropped back 2 cents.
If you had invested $10,000 into its shares on day one, you'd have picked up a cool 17,857 shares.
Those shares today would be worth a mouth-watering $184,462.81.
What does this show?
I believe this demonstrates how rewarding long-term investing can be, especially if you can pick out a small cap share with a lot of growth potential.
While I'm doubtful that up and coming infant formula companies Bubs Australia Ltd (ASX: BUB) and Wattle Health Australia Ltd (ASX: WHA) will follow in a2 Milk Company's footsteps and create returns of that magnitude in the future, I do believe there are small cap shares in other industries that have significant potential.
Three that I would suggest investors check out are cloud-based talent management software solutions provider ELMO Software Ltd (ASX: ELO), information and data management specialist Citadel Group Ltd (ASX: CGL), and breast imaging analytics and analysis software provider Volpara Health Technologies Ltd (ASX: VHT).
There is of course no guarantee that they will generate returns anywhere near the level that a2 Milk Company's shares have, but I feel they have the potential to be future market-beaters.
