A lot of investors kick themselves for not getting in on the ground floor of a hot company that conquers the world.
Waterloo-based Research In Motion, which debuted on the Toronto Stock Exchange in 1997, is one of the best examples.
This summer, RIM topped Fortune magazine's annual ranking of the 100 Fastest Growing Companies, which it expanded this year to include firms based outside the United States. The scoring was based on three-year growth in revenue, earnings per share and total return to investors.
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It's not as if RIM were an unknown quantity in 1997. Then, as now, however, it looked risky to many money managers.
And RIM's share price has often swung wildly from year to year, even month to month. Lately, however, RIM's BlackBerry Curve has been cleaning up against Apple's iPhone.
The bottom line: If you'd invested $100 in RIM's IPO, your shares would be worth about $6,770 today.