No. of Recommendations: 11
Berkshire purchased 2.09 million shares in the IPO at a price of $120/share, or $250.8 million, on Sept 16, 2020, plus an additional 4.04 million shares in a private transaction from former Snowflake CEO Robert Muglia at the opening price on the day of the IPO of $245/share, or $989.8 million. In total Berkshire owns 6.125 million shares of SNOW with a cost basis of $1,240.6 million, or $202.55/share.It is true that the opening price was $245, but the IPO price was $120. If you have a source for the idea that the additional shares were purchased at the opening price and not the IPO price, I'd be curious to see it.
But this is what the Snowflake PR said, on September 16:
SAN MATEO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Snowflake, the cloud data platform, today announced the pricing of its initial public offering of 28,000,000 shares of Class A common stock at a price to the public of $120.00 per share.
The shares are expected to begin trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol 'SNOW' on September 16, 2020, and the offering is expected to close on September 18, 2020, subject to customary closing conditions. In addition, Snowflake has granted the underwriters a 30-day option to purchase up to 4,200,000 additional shares of Class A common stock at the initial public offering price less underwriting discounts and commissions.My understanding is that Berkshire is one of the underwriters mentioned in that last sentence, and that they bought 4.04 million of those additional 4.2 million shares, but it would be nice to see a confirmation from Berkshire that this is so. Well, there's this on the S&P site that seems to confirm that the 4.04 million shares were to be sold at the IPO price, not the opening price.:
Furthermore, Berkshire has agreed to purchase 4,042,043 shares from a Snowflake stockholder at the IPO price in a secondary private placement, which will close with the main offering, the company disclosed in a registration statement.spglobal.com - The rising importance of sustainability in credit riskSo it looks like all Berkshire's shares were bought at $120.
Regards, DTB
