2 top ASX shares to buy and hold for the next decade

The ASX share market is a great place to find investments that we can buy and own for the long-term. Allowing compounding to work its magic over an extended period of time.

It’s during times like these that investors can find opportunities that are more likely to produce strong returns. The lower the price we pay for a good business, the stronger the return can be.

For example, a great business may be able to grow its share price from $10 to $20 over a five-year period – a return of 100%. But, if it fell to $8 (a 20% drop from $10) during that five-year period, the rise to $20 would be a gain of 150% (in a shorter timeframe) if someone managed to buy at $8.

Let’s look at two businesses that have compelling futures and look good value today.

Guzman Y Gomez Ltd (ASX: GYG)

Guzman Y Gomez is a Mexican food business with restaurants in Australia, Singapore, Japan and the US.

At the end of the FY26 half-year period, the business had 237 locations in Australia (with 87 of those being company-owned and 150 being franchised). It also had 27 franchise locations in Asia (22 in Singapore and five in Japan), as well as eight company-owned locations in the US.

The ASX share is looking to grow to 1,000 Guzman Y Gomez locations in Australia over the next two decades, which would mean a quadrupling of its current network.

Network sales are growing rapidly in Australia, which I think is a great sign of how the company’s financials could progress in the coming years because of how popular it is with consumers.

In HY26, Australian total network sales jumped 17.4% to $632.1 million and the Asian network sales increased 19.25% year-over-year.

While the US segment is currently struggling with profitability, the ongoing scaling of the business can help with certain profit measures. In HY26, US network sales jumped 67% to $8.2 million, while general and administrative expenses as a percentage of network sales improved from 78.1% in HY25 to 48.2% to HY26.

Despite investment in growth in the US, Guzman Y Gomez is seeing pleasing growth of its profit levels. Overall operating profit (EBITDA) grew by 29.6% to $40.9 million and net profit rose 44.9% to $10.6 million.

The ASX share is demonstrating operating leverage, strong double-digit revenue growth and it has big growth plans.

As long as the company’s comparable sales growth remains solid, I think the business has very exciting prospects, particularly at this lower price – it’s cheaper by around 25% in the year to date.   

Rivco Australia Ltd (ASX: RIV)

This business is a company that purely owns water entitlements in Australia and leases them out to agricultural operators on both long-term and short-term leases.

Rivco regularly agrees leases with farmers. For example, its February update included a 1,000 ML lease, taking its forward-committed position from 1 July 26 to around 66% of the portfolio.

The ASX share is seeing strong demand from irrigators and some dam storage levels have reduced.

In the long-term, I’m expecting water entitlement values to increase as a result of the Australian and global populations increasing, as well as more water-hungry crops being planted (such as almonds).

With the ASX share recently placing greater emphasis on paying a dividend based on its core operating earnings, I think it will be able to deliver stronger capital growth over the long term if it reinvests more of its capital gains in additional water entitlements or other shareholder-boosting initiatives, such as debt repayment or on-market share buybacks.

At February 2026, the ASX share reported a pre-tax net asset value (NAV) of $1.79 and post-tax NAV of $1.62. That means the current Rivco share price is at a discount of more than 10%, which looks appealing to me.

The post 2 top ASX shares to buy and hold for the next decade appeared first on The Motley Fool Australia.

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Motley Fool contributor Tristan Harrison has positions in Guzman Y Gomez. The Motley Fool Australia’s parent company Motley Fool Holdings Inc. has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool Australia has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. This article contains general investment advice only (under AFSL 400691). Authorised by Scott Phillips.