Jumbo
Unique retailer. Crazy margins. Strong dividend.
The story of JUMBO is one of the greatest Greek success stories of the modern age.
Apostolos Vakakis built it from the ground up starting in 1986, later listing it on the ASE (Athens Stock Exchange) in 1997.
Since then the business has turned the Greek+ retail space upside down — and still going.
Jumbo is a fit for our NED Index (No-End Dividend) because it pays a dividend (duh!) and I expect it to increasingly continue to do so.
But also because it is a high-quality business with unique characteristics which enable it to 1) Defend its moat going forward and 2) Grow the top and bottom lines with above-average returns on invested capital.
For NED, we are simply looking for superior economics expected to remain so for the considerable future — and we want to pay a reasonable price for the privilege of owning them. Simple, but not easy!
For context, I previously wrote a piece on Jumbo in late 2021, here. And the war story of me owning shares in Jumbo during the 2015 Greek summer of financial tragedy, tweet here.
Let’s dive straight in…