14 DAY TRIAL // While for many this sounds like something that’s impossible to happen, there was a time when Microsoft owned part of Apple simply because the Cupertino-based tech giant was really struggling from a financial perspective.
It was 1997 when Apple brought back Steve Jobs as an interim CEO and eventually decide to sign a deal with its biggest competitor.
Microsoft, the company that was doing so much better at that time, agreed to invest no less than $150 million in Apple, with the Cupertino-based company to install Internet Explorer as the default browser on the Macintosh in return.
Internet Explorer thus became the browser of choice on the Mac, and Steve Jobs actually praised it at MacWorld during the same year.
“We believe that Internet Explorer is a really good browser, and we think it’s going to make a fine default browser,” Steve Jobs said 23 years ago.
Apple is worth more than $2 trillion today
Microsoft eventually sold its stake in Apple and in mid-2003 it was no longer a shareholder for the Cupertino-based firm. For Microsoft, however, this was quite a good deal, as its Apple shares were sold for $550 million, which considering it originally invested $150 million, it was clearly a smart move for Bill Gates.
But what if Microsoft decided to keep its Apple stake? How much would Microsoft’s stake in Apple be worth today?
According TNW estimates, quite a lot. After all the stock splits that have taken place in the meantime, Microsoft would have ended in control of 253.4 million shares. Which considering that AAPL is now worth $503,43 means Microsoft would have made no less than $127.5 billion with its stake in Apple.
In other words, the shares that Microsoft purchased in 1997 in Apple would have been worth 850 times more after 23 years.
Apple is currently valued at $2.1 trillion.