The 'newest' growth stocks on the ASX: Where are they now?

It's been almost a year since I wrote about "the newest growth stocks on the ASX" – where we highlighted a few recent listings from late 2024-early 2025.

This followed a wave of M&A that took plenty of prospective names like Altium, Arcadia Lithium, CSR, Cimic Group, Dropsuite, De Grey and more, off the market.

Finding these companies was not so much a selective process, but simply looking for IPOs that were profitable (among the sea of 20-cent explorers), along with a sensible growth trajectory. They included:

• Cuscal (ASX: CCL), payments infrastructure provider that provides B2B payment processing services to banks, fintechs and corporates
• Symal (ASX: SYL), founder-led, vertically integrated civil construction business
• Bhagwan Marine (ASX: BWN), a marine solutions provider that operates in sectors including oil & gas, resources, construction and defence
• Alfabs (ASX: AAL), a mining equipment and engineering company
• Tasmea (ASX: TEA), a maintenance and engineering services company

In the last twelve months, Tasmea, Cuscal and Symal have rallied 124%, 87% and 62% respectively, while Bhagwan and Alfabs have both tanked around 20% (inclusive of dividends).

And here's a look at current valuations, FY25 growth rates and trailing dividends. Surprisingly, all of these stocks have either issued a maiden dividend in recent times, or are known to pay dividends.

Key catalysts and food for thought

Cuscal has a very unique valuation proposition, having made two major acquisitions in the last twelve months.

In August 2025, the company acquired payment facilitation company, Indue, for $75 million. The business was acquired for a relatively undemanding valuation (~3.7x PE) and set to generate EPS accretion of over 25% by FY29.

In April 2026, Cuscal acquired NZ electronic payments provider Paymark for $27 million. This acquisition was funded via a $30 million placement and expected to be mid-single digit EPS accretive in FY27.

Notwithstanding execution risk involved with integrating new businesses, Cuscal has quite a bit of growth to look forward to, outside of its core business, while still trading at a relatively modest multiple.

Symal has a similar narrative, having acquired six businesses in the last twelve months (yes six). This includes:

• 8-Apr-26: Ascot Bin Hire for $12m, expected to provide underlying EBITDA uplift of ~$2.5m
• 19-Dec-25: Davison Earthmovers for $23.2m (80% share), expected to deliver annualised EBITDA of ~$7m
• 10-Dec-25: Timms Group and L&D Contracting for $28m, annualised EBITDA of ~8m in FY26
• 17-Sep-25: McFadyen Group for $11m, forecast annualised EBITDA of ~$3m in FY26
• 21-Aug-25: Locale Civil for $35m, forecast $8m normalised EBITDA in FY26, with $230m work-in-hand

Symal established a $300 million revolving corporate debt facility late last year to support future organic growth and M&A. Though the company still sits in a net cash position of $6.1 million ($120m in drawn debt vs. $126.1m cash).

At the February half-year result, Symal guided to FY26 EBITDA of $117-127 million, which implies year-on-year growth of 15% at the midpoint. That's quite a year-on-year deceleration in growth and perhaps why Symal trades at just 10x.

Alfabs suffered an unexpected setback at its half-year result (23-Feb). The business took a $2.8 million hit after a major client, the Dartbrook coal mine, fell into administration. Management also cited lower engineering margins on the back of a "softer infrastructure market". As a result, statutory EBITDA for the first-half fell 24% to $9.5 million.

Net debt also increased sharply to $37.8 million, up 81% half-on-half due to "ongoing capital investment in hire fleet assets." This is a massive increase relative to the company's market cap (currently $42m) and its cash position of $4.8 million, as at 31 December.

The stock fell 30.5% on the day, and has been largely trading sideways ever since.

Bhagwan's performance has surprised me the most – left-field setbacks like Alfabs I can understand – but Bhagwan IPO'd shortly after the $1 billion ($2.70 per share) takeover of peer MMA Offshore by Asia’s Cyan Renewables, along with what seemed like solid sector tailwinds.

The company operates a fleet of over 100 vessels, servicing diverse industries such as oil and gas, renewables, defence, and civil construction, offering solutions across ports, offshore, and subsea environments.

The latest half-year FY26 result (26-Feb) was rather lacklustre, featuring:

• Revenue down 24% to $116.8m
• Net profit after tax down 67% to $2.9m
• Net cash from operations up 21% to $25.4m
• Net debt up 226% to $42.0m

The increase in debt largely reflects the acquisition of Riverside Marine for an upfront $120 million, which is expected to deliver EPS accretion of 14%.

Bhagwan's IPO offer price was 63 cents per share and its been hovering record lows of ~38 cents in recent days.

The market's newest growth stories

There haven't been too many interesting profitable growth stories to have debuted in recent months. The main ones include: 

• Virgin (ASX: VGN), Australia's second-largest airline group
• Gemlife (ASX: GLF), a vertically integrated developer and operator of land-lease lifestyle communities for Australians aged over 50
• Advanced Innergy (ASX: AIH), a manufacturer of insulation, buoyancy, cable protection and fire protection systems for the energy and industrial sectors
• Koala (ASX: KOA), a direct-to-consumer mattress and furniture brand operating across Australia, Japan, the UK and the US

Advanced Innergy is probably the most low-profile name from the above, making its debut last October after raising $150 million for an indicative market cap of $422 million. 

The Chairman's letter, within the prospectus, had a few interesting points that piqued my interest:

• "A new entrant would need to replicate 181 active and pending patents, secure 93 type approvals (each requiring 12-18 months and costing up to $2 million each)
• The product groups have a collective addressable market estimated at $6.5 billion in 2024
• Approximately 70% of revenue is generated from repeat work and long-term relationships
• Renewable sectors now generate approximately 50% of group revenues (as at FY24)

Advanced Innergy reports off-cycle, with its latest result (FY25 on 27-Nov-25) noting:

• Revenue up 16% to $335.5m
• EBITDA up 50.1% to $59.0m
• NPAT up 134.5% to $25.8m
• FY26 EBITDA guidance of $62.3m reaffirmed

Overall, a very sticky and moat-protected business, though FY26 guidance implies slower growth relative to prior years. That said, its trading at modest 14.7x PE and hovering slightly below the IPO offer price.

The bottom line

The IPO space is never short of explorers, but the pool of genuinely profitable, quality businesses remains shallow. That doesn't mean the names that do exist are anything close to low quality.

The list from the prior series (Cuscal, Symal, Bhagwan, Alfabs, and Tasmea) observed relatively undemanding valuations and double-digit growth rates. For the most part, that combination translated into very strong returns, though Alfabs fumbled and Bhagwan never lived up to expectations. A reminder, perhaps, not to put all your eggs in one basket, and that the trend is your friend: the outperformers have largely trended higher with only shallow pullbacks along the way.