Buffett’s flagship holding company Berkshire Hathaway owned roughly $730 million worth of Snowflake stock leading into yesterday market debut, based on its IPO price of $120 per share. In what’s now heralded as the biggest software IPO of all time, Snowflake stock peaked at $319 per share (up 265%) and closed at $253.93 (up 111%), awarding Snowflake a market value of some $70 billion. According to CNBC, this grew Berkshire’s stake in the Californian data-warehousing startup to a grundle-tickling $1.55 billion, while The Wall Street Journal noted Snowflake is now worth five times its private valuation in February. [Read: Bill Gates owns a lot more Apple stock than you might think] Overall, Snowflake sold 28 million shares to raise $3.36 billion.
Buffett once likened IPO investing to playing the lottery
Snowflake is reportedly Buffett’s first IPO since carmaker Ford went public way back in 1956 — and considering his typical aversion to tech stocks, some analysts suspect Berkshire’s investment came by way of one of Buffett’s lieutenants. Buffett aside, Snowflake’s record debut also made two of the company’s C-level employees instant billionaires, namely its CEO and CFO, neither of whom founded the company. Reuters reported Snowflake hired both execs to help the company to a successful IPO.
