Bill Gates is a man of many accolades as a founder of what is now the world’s biggest company, a major donor to various philanthropic efforts, the centerpiece of one of the most successful PR campaigns in modern history, and a highly successful investor whose wealth has been growing ever larger across the decades.
Given this context, it is highly interesting that along with many other prominent billionaires and traders – Michael Burry, Warren Buffett, and George Soros, just to name a few – Bill Gates’ Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust unveiled its updated portfolio in a 13-f filing covering the first quarter of 2024.
Right off the bat, a clear difference between the trust’s activities during the last trimester of 2023 and the first of this year emerges – while the previous filing revealed that Gates made a purge of most stocks from his portfolio, leaving only a select few, this time, the holdings remained mostly stable.
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The biggest changes to the Gates portfolio
Still, two clear exceptions emerged. The first and oddest comes in the form of the smallest holding in the portfolio – Vroom Inc. (NASDAQ: VRM).
Apparently, Gates cleared his entire stake in VRM – market at approximately 2.5 million shares worth $1,506 – only to buy 31,250 shares in the same company, recorded as being worth $419.
Additionally, while most other changes to the portfolio were no greater than 13%, the billionaire founder of Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) is recorded as having increased his stake in Walmart (NYSE: WMT) by some 200%.
Indeed, at the end of the final quarter of 2023, the trust held just over 3 million WMT shares while, by the end of Q1 of this year, the number increased to 9 million. The move effectively increased Gates’ investment in Walmart from $477 million to $546 million.
The single biggest outright reduction of a holding pertains to Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK.B), as Gates reduced the stake by 13% from a total of 19.9 million shares to 17 million.
The biggest Bill Gates stocks
Meanwhile and, perhaps not surprisingly, the largest holding of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust remains Microsoft itself. In fact, the trust, as of the latest filing, holds as many as 36.5 million MSFT shares worth approximately $15 billion.
This individual holding accounts for 34% of the entire portfolio.
Additionally, as at the time of the previous filing, the second-biggest holding remains Waste Management (NYSE: WM).
Crucially, both of the biggest holdings are significant dividend stocks, and, indeed, Bill Gates was estimated in April to be making as much as $1.1 million in dividends every single day.
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