Can Baltic Classifieds boost your portfolio?
Baltic Classifieds (LSE: BCG) operates a wide range of car, job, real estate, and professional services websites in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. It is uniquely placed to benefit from the region’s prosperity. While countries such as France, Spain and Germany have been struggling, the Baltic states have been quietly getting on with boosting productivity and growth. Barely two decades after joining the EU in 2004, Estonia’s GDP, adjusted for inflation, is now close to that of Portugal, while Lithuania’s is not too far off Italy’s.
Baltic Classifieds runs 14 different websites and has benefited from the fact that the Baltic states have a strong digital culture, regularly scoring highly in international surveys of digital competitiveness and digital security. Strong economic growth in the area has been a further tailwind.
How Baltic Classifieds is profiting from the network effect
Most of Baltic Classifieds’ websites are leaders in their sector. This is important since online marketplaces tend to benefit from network effects, with buyers and sellers gravitating towards a few major portals. Some of Baltic Classifieds’ websites, such as the Estonian car site Auto24, are so dominant they have no major specialist competitors. It’s estimated that each resident of the Baltics visits the group’s websites about ten times a month. This market power allows the company to make large operating margins, which reached 68% in 2026, and Baltic Classifieds earns a double-digit return on capital employed.
Sign up to Money Morning
Don’t miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter
Don’t miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter
Baltic Classifieds should benefit from the fact that both income and wages in the Baltic should continue increasing at a much stronger rate than the rest of Europe. However, Baltic Classifieds is also attempting to increase its profits in three other ways. Firstly, it’s investing in cutting-edge technology to ensure its websites stay popular. It’s also trying to find new ways to monetise its websites through partnerships. Finally, it’s selectively buying other companies to fill the gaps in its portfolio.
Baltic Classifieds’s sales have more than doubled since 2021, with normalised earnings per share increasing more than tenfold during the same period, and both are expected to keep growing. The balance sheet is healthy, with net debt declining since 2022. Despite the company’s solid fundamentals, the stock trades at a very reasonable 15.5 times projected 2028 earnings with a solid dividend (for a technology company) of 2%.
Baltic Classifieds also looks appealing from a technical perspective – the share price has done better than the overall market over the past one, three and six months and trades above its 50- and 200-day moving averages. I would therefore suggest you go long at the current price of €2.45, at £110 per €1. I would put the stop-loss at €1.65, which gives you a total downside of £880.
This article was first published in MoneyWeek’s magazine. Enjoy exclusive early access to news, opinion and analysis from our team of financial experts with a MoneyWeek subscription.
