A Look Back At ValueAct's Massive Microsoft Bet

A little more than three years after ValueAct Capital CEO Jeffrey Ubben disclosed the fund’s massive $2 billion stake in Microsoft Corporation MSFT, the stock has nearly doubled in price.

The day before Ubben discussed the position at an investor conference in April of 2013, Microsoft’s stock closed at $29.77.

Last week, Microsoft reached as high as $58.14, a 95.2 percent gain.

The trade has been a winner from ValueAct since the beginning, and the stock has never dipped below $30 since the fund’s position was first reported. Microsoft’s 95 percent gain has dwarfed the 39.6 percent gain of the S&P 500 over the same period.

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After an initial surge to $47, Microsoft was range-bound between $47 and $38 from November 2014 to October 2015. The stock then broke out to a new trading range between $47 and $56. Microsoft stayed within that range from October 2015 until a breakout last month that carried it to $58.

Despite the huge gains, ValueAct isn’t quite satisfied with Microsoft just yet. The fund’s most recent 13F filing indicates that ValueAct added a modest 908 shares of Microsoft in Q2, upping its total stake to 56,624,678 shares. At today’s market price, that $3.2 billion stake represents more than 26 percent of ValueAct’s total holdings.