The timeline of the movie suggests that the investment in Apple was made after Hurricane Carmen in 1974. A post on Quora asked how much venture capital Apple Computer received in its very early days and one of the answers noted different sources give different and conflicting answers.
User "Jerry Neumann" stated that Apple received a $250,000 investment from Mike Markulla in 1976. Markulla is an angel investor and also became the second CEO of Apple Computer.
Neumann added that after Markulla's investment, Apple turned toward venture capital funding and the company hoped to raise $500,000 for a 15 percent stake.
Keeping in sync with the timeline of the film, we will assume Forrest Gump took part in the round of financing and bought a $100,000 stake, which is good for 3 percent of the entire company.
IPO To Present Day
Apple's stock began trading for the first time on a public market on December 12, 1980. Apple's launch consisted of selling 4.6 million shares at $22 per share.
By the end of the trading day Apple's stock closed at $29 which valued the still-young company at $1.778 billion. Owning 3 percent of Apple by the end of the day, Gump's shares would be worth more than $53 million.
Assuming Gump didn't sell any shares over the years and he collected cash dividends rather than re-investing, his stake would be worth 3 percent of Tuesday's market capitalization of $631.20 billion, or $18.9 billion — not bad for a small investment in a "fruit company" in its early stages but not quite enough to crack the list of the world's richest 15 people.
Image Credit: By Various (National Archives) [CC BY-SA 4.0], via Wikimedia Commons© 2024 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
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