One of the best performers on the Australian share market over the last decade has been the Ramsay Health Care Limited (ASX: RHC) share price.
During this time the private hospital operator's shares have provided investors with an average annual total return of 20.8%.
This means that an investment of $25,000 into its shares ten years ago would have grown to be worth almost $170,000 today.
And while I think the company has the potential to be a market beater again over the next decade, I believe the tough trading conditions that it is facing across its global operations means that it could be a couple of years until it starts growing its earnings meaningfully again.
Because of this, I would suggest investors hold off investing in its shares in the near term and focus on other growth shares.
Three that I would consider buying instead of Ramsay Health Care are as follows:
Citadel Group Ltd (ASX: CGL)
Citadel is a growing software and services company specialising in IT security and data management. I believe it is well positioned to continue growing at a strong rate over the coming years thanks to its key Citadel-Information Exchange (Citadel-IX) cloud-based enterprise information management platform. Given the importance of data security, I expect demand for the platform to increase and underpin the company's growth.
WiseTech Global Ltd (ASX: WTC)
WiseTech Global is a leading logistics platform provider which has been growing at an explosive rate over the last few years. Thanks to increasing demand for its platform and higher revenues per user, the company's management team recently upgraded its EBITDA growth guidance for FY 2019 to between 31% and 37%. Given the lucrative market opportunity and the quality of its product, I believe WiseTech Global can continue this above-average earnings growth for many years.
Xero Limited (ASX: XRO)
Another growth share that I think would be a better investment option than Ramsay Health Care is this cloud-based accounting software company. Especially after its strong start to FY 2019. Xero recently reported a 37% jump in first half revenue to $256.5 million. This was driven by the addition of 193,000 net subscribers and a 6% lift in its average revenue per user metric.
