Salesforce, Berkshire Hathaway Retain Major Stakes In Snowflake

Both companies own more than $1 billion in shares of the high-flying cloud data management company two weeks after Snowflake’s blockbuster IPO.

Cloud application vendor Salesforce and Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway, respectively, own 9.9 percent and 15.2 percent stakes in Snowflake, the cloud data company that went public earlier this month in a blockbuster IPO, according to documents filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

At Tuesday’s stock closing price of $259.13 per share, Salesforce’s stake is worth more than $1.1 billion while Berkshire Hathaway’s is worth more than $1.53 billion.

Shares in Snowflake began trading on the New York Stock Exchange on Sept. 16 in what proved to be the biggest IPO so far this year and the biggest software company IPO ever. The company’s current market cap of more than $71 billion exceeds that of such IT industry giants as VMware and Dell Technologies.

[Related: Snowflake’s IPO: The Details You Need To Know]

Snowflake’s shares were initially priced at $120 per share for the IPO, but they began trading at $245 per share and surged as high as $300 per share in the first minutes of trading before settling back. Since then the stock’s daily closing prices have swung between a low of $217.39 on Sept. 23 and Tuesday’s $259.13 closing price.

Salesforce owns 4,253,644 shares of snowflake common stock, according to a Schedule 13G document filed with the SEC, including 2.1 million shares of Class A common stock and 2.17 million shares of Class B common stock – the latter convertible into Class A common stock within 60 days, according to a Seeking Alpha report. Combined those holdings account for 9.9 percent of outstanding shares.

At its current price of around $250 per share, the 2.1 million shares of Class A common stock are worth $525 million while the convertible Class B shares would more than double that figure once converted to Class A Shares. Salesforce also owns 1.7 million shares of non-convertible Class B common stock, according to Seeking Alpha.

Berkshire Hathaway owns 6,125,376 shares of Snowflake stock or 15.2 percent of outstanding shares, according to a Schedule 13G document filed with the SEC. At $250 per share, those holdings would be worth more than $1.53 billion.

About a week prior to the IPO Snowflake secured commitments from Salesforce and Berkshire Hathaway to each purchase $250 million worth of stock – 2.1 million shares – at the initial $120 per share price in a private placement immediately after the IPO.

Berkshire Hathaway has since been building up its stake in Snowflake, according to Seeking Alpha, including buying about 4 million shares from a selling stakeholder in a secondary transaction that closed with the offering.

Berkshire Hathaway has realized a profit of about $800 million on its investment of about $735 million in Snowflake, according to a Business Insider calculation.

Salesforce and Snowflake have a strategic relationship, extended in June, that includes data integration capabilities between Salesforce applications and the Snowflake platform and a data marketplace for customers of both companies.

Snowflake’s biggest owners remain the company’s early investors including venture capital firm Sutter Hill Ventures with a 20.3 percent stake in the company and private equity firm Altimeter Capital Management with an ownership stake of about 13.3 percent, according to a Schedule 13G document filed with the SEC.