Alphabet (GOOGL.US) became the largest institutional shareholder of SpaceX (SPCX.US): Positions reached US$94 billion, and the US$900 million bet in 2015 made 100 times more profit

The Zhitong Finance App learned that a bet of 900 million US dollars in 2015 has now evolved into an investment myth with 100 times the return. As SpaceX (SPCX.US) completed its historic IPO of 86 billion US dollars in June this year, Google's parent company Alphabet (GOOGL.US) quickly became SpaceX's largest single institutional shareholder with its early layout.

According to documents submitted by Alphabet, as of June 30, the company held 552 million shares of SpaceX shares, with a market value of about US$94.2 billion based on the closing price of the day of US$170.86. Compared with the initial investment of US$900 million in 2015, this investment has increased more than 100 times over a decade.

SpaceX landed on NASDAQ on June 12, and the issue price was set at $135 per share. As 13F position reports for the second quarter were revealed one after another, the holdings of various institutions with SpaceX surfaced.

In addition to Alphabet, SpaceX's main institutional investors include the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF), which opened a new position of about 1541.5 million shares in the second quarter, D1 Capital added about 126 million shares, Tiger Global disclosed its holdings of 375,000 shares, and Viking Global increased its holdings by 1.2 million shares in the second quarter. Furthermore, according to the latest 13F document, Nvidia (NVDA.US) increased its holdings by about 1227.6 million shares, and AMD (AMD.US) opened a new position of about 3.31 million shares.

However, the 13F document is prepared quarterly and disclosed within six weeks after the end of the quarter, so this information lags behind and does not reflect the trading situation of these large investors since June 30. Furthermore, SpaceX's investment landscape is huge, and the schedule for lifting the ban on shares held by various institutions varies, further making analysis more difficult.

Steve Sosnick, market strategist at Yingtou Securities, said, “It is very, very difficult to determine which institutions hold pre-IPO shares.” He added that the 13F document did not reveal the status of the investor's sales ban period, nor did it explain its intention to redeem profits from pre-IPO positions.

One exception is Alphabet, which publicly disclosed its $900 million investment in SpaceX in 2015, providing a rare reference benchmark for evaluating the value of its current positions.

SpaceX closed at $140 on Friday, up 3.7% from the IPO price, but down 18% from the closing price on June 30. Sosnick said that SpaceX is still one of the most actively traded stocks by Yingtou Securities customers. Previously, “market concerns about what might happen after the end of the first round of the ban proved to be unfounded, so the stock ushered in a new wave of purchases.”