The stock that’d crush it if it were American

Or: How we keep mispricing our best European businesses like it’s 2012

You ever walk through a European city, spot a slick little café doing everything right—clean menu, loyal crowd, killer vibe—and wonder why it isn’t packed 24/7?

Then you tell yourself without even realising it: « if this place was in Brooklyn or Santa Monica, it’d already have a newsletter, a VC deck, and a six-month waitlist. »

Same goes for European stocks.

We’ve got businesses over here that tick every box: recurring revenue, 20% margins, decent ROIC, low leverage but trade like they’ve committed a crime. Meanwhile, their American cousins with eerily similar numbers are getting valuations that make you question if we’re even playing the same game. (Plot twist: we are not).

Exhibit A: Our underrated European darling

Let’s take a fake-but-very-real example.

Say we’ve got Nordic HealthTech Co.— mid-cap, Stockholm-listed, sells diagnostics software to hospitals. Been growing revenues ~12–15% annually, EBITDA margins steady at 20%, low net debt, good recurring profile.

Let’s stay reasonable and say it’s not a moonshot startup nore flashy. But it executes. Now let’s pretend they IPO in New York tomorrow, same metrics, same product. Just a new ZIP code and a better PowerPoint. Here’s what happens when you compare the two worlds:

Here’s what I asked ChatGPT and I got that.

Identical playbook, double the price tag. Just because one of them shows up to work with a Delaware-incorporated badge.

So why does the US market pay more?

Let’s be honest:

• US investors are trained to love growth. Even modest growth.

• There’s liquidity on tap—more cash sloshing around.

• The Nasdaq brand screams “future”, even if you’re selling invoicing software.

• And there’s a cultural bias: American = aspirational. European = old world.

Also? It’s Political.

Half the small/mid-cap funds in the US are obliged to buy domestic exposure. In Europe? Most funds don’t even look below €1B market cap: no time, no mandate, no PR upside.

The vibe gap is real, Culture make it worse, period.