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Two Stocks the Market Took Years to Notice

By Giancarlo Benincasa ·

Giancarlo Benincasa is the founder of qualiscore.ai, based in Graz, Austria.

Some companies publish good results year after year while only a handful of analysts follow them, and the share price takes its time. The facts are there in annual reports that few investors open. Here are two such stories, one from California and one from Munich.

Hansen Natural and the 16-ounce can

The Hansen family had sold fresh juices in Los Angeles since the 1930s. Hansen Foods, formed in 1977, added natural sodas and went through Chapter 11 in 1988 [1]. In July 1992 a small listed company run by Rodney Sacks and Hilton Schlosberg bought the Hansen's natural soda and apple juice business [1]. The Los Angeles Times later described the buyers as "two South African businessmen" and put the price at $14.6 million [2]. According to Fortune, Hansen then had "sales of just $17 million and a dozen employees" [3].

The rest of the 1990s were lean. In early 1997 the company had 43 employees and an office in Anaheim. It had lost money in 1994 and 1995, and in 1995 its shares were quoted on the Nasdaq Small-Cap Market between about 63 cents and $1.81 [1]. In April 1997 it tried a "lightly carbonated citrus flavored" energy drink in a slim 8.2-ounce can [5]. By 1999 net sales had reached $66.2 million, with net income of $4.5 million [6]. The shareholder base stayed tiny, with about 649 holders of record in early 2002 [4].

In April 2002 Hansen launched "a new lightly carbonated energy drink under the Monster(TM) brand name, in a 16-ounce can", which the company called "almost double the size of our regular energy drinks in 8.3-ounce cans" [6]. Distribution was patchy. Hansen sold through its "full service distributor network", but "in many states however, distribution is only on a limited scale" [6].

The 10-K for 2002, filed on March 31, 2003, said the rise in sales was "primarily attributable to sales of our Monster (TM) energy drink, which was introduced in April 2002" [6]. Net sales were $92.0 million and net income $3.0 million [6]. The market barely reacted: on the cover of that filing, the shares held by outsiders were valued at about $23.0 million as of March 3, 2003, almost the same as the $22.8 million a year earlier [4][6]. Through the first half of 2003 its shares were quoted between $3.17 and $4.50, inside the $3.00 to $4.65 range of 2002 [7].

Net sales reached $110.4 million in 2003, and the 10-K again credited Monster [7]. They rose to $180.3 million in 2004 and $348.9 million in 2005, while net income went from $5.9 million to $20.4 million to $62.8 million [9]. Diluted earnings per share rose from $0.29 in 2002 to $1.73 in 2004 [8]. By 2005 the segment built mainly on energy drinks made up 77.4% of net sales, and the company had 476 employees [9].

The share price followed in steps, reaching $5.79 to $9.40 in the fourth quarter of 2003 and $23.09 to $36.41 in the fourth quarter of 2004 [8]. Fortune later summed up that period: "By the end of 2003, the company's stock had doubled, and its sales were up 20%. Then things really took off" [10]. The value of shares held by outsiders grew from $79.0 million in March 2004 to $317.0 million in February 2005 [7][8].

In December 2005 a Citigroup analyst, Gregory Badishkanian, started covering the stock, and the Los Angeles Times wrote that he had "joined the few analysts who follow Hansen" [2]. In May 2006 the Los Angeles Business Journal reported that "analysts following the company have tended to be from specialty firms", until Goldman Sachs began coverage on May 10 [11]. The stock closed at $201.06 that day, and the paper said it "has appreciated 100-fold over the past three years" [11]. That same week, on May 8, 2006, Hansen signed agreements under which selected Anheuser-Busch wholesalers would distribute Monster [12].

By December 2006 Fortune was writing about a company that had been "virtually unknown outside California", whose market value of $2.8 billion was "higher than that of nearly a fifth of the Fortune 500" [3]. In January 2012 Hansen Natural renamed itself Monster Beverage Corporation and began trading as MNST [13]. That June, S&P announced that Monster would replace Sara Lee in the S&P 500 after the close on June 28, moving up from the S&P MidCap 400 [14]. In 2026, US News published a ranking compiled by Charlie Bilello of Creative Planning that put it first among the best-performing S&P 500 stocks of the past 30 years, with a total return of 817,940% from December 1995 to November 2025 [15].

Nemetschek and the three analysts

In 1963 Georg Nemetschek, then 29, founded an engineering office for the construction industry in Munich [16]. By 1977 he was developing software for structural engineering [17], and construction software became the business. The company went public in 1999 [17], and the founder kept control. At the end of 2012 the Nemetschek family held 53.6% of the shares, leaving a free float of 46.4% [18].

On the stock market, the decade that followed was quiet. Earnings per share rose from €1.21 in 2005 to €2.16 in 2011 [19][20], and by 2011 the group had 1,173 employees and more than 300,000 customers worldwide [20]. Yet the whole company was valued at €135.7 million at the end of 2005 and €248.3 million at the end of 2011, with the share price at roughly 10 to 17 times earnings over those years [19][20][21]. The share count stayed at 9.625 million, so no new stock was diluting the value [19]. Trading was thin: in January 2012 an average of just 3,260 shares changed hands per day on German exchanges [18].

Research coverage was just as thin. In 2010 only WestLB and Goldman Sachs published regular research on the share, with DZ Bank joining in October [21]. In 2011 those three were the only regular publishers [20]. The 2012 annual report said the share had most recently been actively followed by "only three analysts" ("lediglich drei Analysten") [18]. In September 2012 WirtschaftsWoche described Nemetschek as the world's number two after Autodesk, with a valuation that was low "at a P/E of just over ten" ("KGV von gut zehn") [22]. The same piece gave a reason why companies like it were overlooked: banks "don't earn much from trading small caps and have therefore assigned hardly any analysts to them" [22].

In 2012 the company made widening research coverage a main focus of its investor relations [18]. Close Brothers Seydler started coverage in August [23]. By the end of December five houses covered the stock, and Montega and M.M. Warburg followed in January 2013, making seven [18]. Trading picked up too, to an average of 7,824 shares a day by December 2012 [18]. By then the stock ranked 29th by market value among candidates for the TecDAX, inside the threshold of 35 [18].

Deutsche Börse added the shares to the TecDAX on September 23, 2013 [24]. At the end of that year the company was valued at €484.3 million, at 20.2 times earnings [24]. A year later the figures were €804.8 million and 25.6 times [25]. Growth continued, and in October 2014 Nemetschek agreed to acquire Bluebeam Software of Pasadena, California [26]. Shareholders approved a 1-for-4 share split at the 2015 annual meeting [27]. On September 24, 2018, the share entered the MDAX, keeping its TecDAX listing [28].

At the end of 2018 Nemetschek was worth €3.7 billion, against €248 million at the end of 2011 [20][28]. Over the same years, profit attributable to shareholders rose from €20.8 million to €76.5 million [18][28], so the valuation grew much faster than the profits.

What the two stories share

Both companies published the facts in their own reports long before most investors read them. Hansen's 10-K credited Monster in March 2003, and Nemetschek's annual reports described a profitable, growing business while three analysts followed it. Analyst coverage and index membership came later. Our analyses draw on companies' own filings and reports, and the weekly run gives the ATX and S&P MidCap 400 companies the same treatment as the largest names. You can browse them on the stocks page.

This article is for information only and is not investment advice.

Sources

  1. Hansen Natural Corporation, Annual Report on Form 10-K for fiscal 1996, SEC EDGAR. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/865752/0000912057-97-011221.txt. Filed 1997-03-31, accessed 2026-11-08.
  2. James F. Peltz, "Hansen's Monster gains strength in energy-drink market", Los Angeles Times, republished by The Seattle Times. https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/20051227/monster27/hansens-monster-gains-strength-in-energy-drink-market. Published 2005-12-27, accessed 2026-11-08.
  3. Matthew Boyle, "Monster energy drink maker Hansen Natural stock is up 6000%", Fortune (issue of 25 Dec 2006). https://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2006/12/25/8396769/index.htm. Published 2006-12-25, accessed 2026-11-08.
  4. Hansen Natural Corporation, Annual Report on Form 10-K for fiscal 2001, SEC EDGAR. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/865752/000086575202000006/fs123101a.txt. Filed 2002-03-29, accessed 2026-11-08.
  5. Hansen Natural Corporation, Annual Report on Form 10-K for fiscal 1998, SEC EDGAR. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0000865752/000086575299000003/0000865752-99-000003.txt. Filed 1999-03-31, accessed 2026-11-08.
  6. Hansen Natural Corporation, Annual Report on Form 10-K for fiscal 2002, SEC EDGAR. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0000865752/000086575203000004/k10.txt. Filed 2003-03-31, accessed 2026-11-08.
  7. Hansen Natural Corporation, Annual Report on Form 10-K for fiscal 2003, SEC EDGAR. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0000865752/000086575204000022/k123103.txt. Filed 2004-03-30, accessed 2026-11-08.
  8. Hansen Natural Corporation, Annual Report on Form 10-K for fiscal 2004, SEC EDGAR. https://sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/865752/000086575205000008/k123104.txt. Filed 2005-03-16, accessed 2026-11-08.
  9. Hansen Natural Corporation, Annual Report on Form 10-K for fiscal 2005, SEC EDGAR. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0000865752/000086575206000099/k123005b.txt. Filed 2006-03-15, accessed 2026-11-08.
  10. Corey Hajim, "What, exactly, could make a beverage stock rise 3,900%?", Fortune (issue of 10 Jul 2006). https://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2006/07/10/8380858/index.htm. Published 2006-07-10, accessed 2026-11-08.
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  13. Hansen Natural Corporation, press release on the name change to Monster Beverage Corporation (Form 8-K, Exhibit 99.1), SEC EDGAR. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0000865752/000110465912000837/a12-2136_1ex99d1.htm. Dated 2012-01-05, accessed 2026-11-08.
  14. S&P Indices, "S&P Indices Announces Changes to U.S. Indices", press release. https://press.spglobal.com/2012-06-21-S-P-Indices-Announces-Changes-to-U-S-Indices. Published 2012-06-21, accessed 2026-11-08.
  15. US News, "10 best-performing stocks of the past 30 years", republished by WTOP. https://wtop.com/news/2026/03/10-best-performing-stocks-of-the-past-30-years. Published 2026-03-08, accessed 2026-11-08.
  16. Nemetschek Group, press release on the company's 60th anniversary, Munich. https://nemetschek.com/de/node/2145. Published 2023-12-20, accessed 2026-11-08.
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