Bill and Melinda Gates sold off shares of Apple, Twitter, and Amazon before the divorce announcement.
The evidenced by data from documents filed the fund with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. It follows from them that in October – December 2020, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation halved the number of Apple shares: from 2 million to 1 million.
In January – March 2021, the fund sold the remaining securities. At the end of March, 1 million Apple shares were worth about $ 122.4 million.
In addition, the Gates Foundation sold 272,400 shares of the social network Twitter. At the end of March, they were worth $ 63.62 – the fund could earn $ 17.3 million from the sale. Also, in the first quarter, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation got rid of 30,200 shares of the Internet retailer Amazon, for which the organization could receive $ 93.4 million.
The most significant sales of the Gates fund also included:
retailer Walmart – the share in the chain of stores decreased by 34%. The fund sold more than 4 million securities, which by the end of the quarter were worth over $ 543.6 million;
Logistics company FedEx Corporation – cut from 3 million shares to almost 1.5 million;
Delivery service United Parcel Serice – a decrease from 4.5 million securities to 2.8 million;
Canadian National Railway – The fund sold 3.1 million shares, leaving $ 13.9 million.
At the same time, the Internet retailer Coupang, which is called the “Korean Amazon,” appeared in the portfolio of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. In the first quarter of 2021, the fund bought over 5.7 million shares of the company. At the end of March, the retailer’s package of securities was worth $ 282 million, but by the close of trading on May 17, it fell to $ 201 million.
The Gates also increased the fund’s share in the Mexican Coca-Cola FEMSA – the largest producer of carbonated drink in the world by the number of bottles. The charitable organization received over 81.86 million shares of the company. Before that, the fund had only 6.2 million securities.
Divorce and controversial foundation
Bill and Melinda Gates announced their divorce on May 3. They did not talk about the reasons for the separation and the details of the division of property. According to TMZ, the spouses did not enter into a marriage contract, and Melinda applied to the court for divorce, demanding that the court declare the marriage “irrevocably dissolved.”
According to Forbes, as of May 18, Bill Gates’s fortune is $ 127.4 billion, according to Bloomberg – $ 144 billion. Only his shares of Microsoft (1.37%) are worth more than $ 26 billion. If the Gates split their fortune in half, the founder of Microsoft could drop to about 17th place in the Forbes billionaire ranking, and 56-year-old Melinda will become one of the richest women in the world.
Happen to the foundation of one of the wealthiest couples in the world – the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Today it is the world’s largest private philanthropic organization on the planet and maybe the most controversial asset in a divorce.
When Amazon founder Jeff Bezos got divorced, sectioning his fortune was not a big problem, as it is the Internet retailer’s stock. Microsoft also owned bill Gates’ equity, but the software maker now accounts for less than 20% of its assets. The billionaire has moved most of his stake to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and his exact stake has not since he left the tech giant’s board in 2020.
