Wellcome Trust makes $100m from Twitter shares
pharmafile | December 20, 2013 | News story | Medical Communications, Sales and Marketing | Francis Crick Institute, Twitter, University College London, University of Cambridge, University of Oxford, Wellcome Trust
The Wellcome Trust has walked away with a profit of more than $100 million from a previously undisclosed investment in the micro-blogging site Twitter.
The Trust which is the biggest charity in the UK and gives out millions each year for medical research, revealed the investment this week.
It said it now owned more than 1% of the company, making Twitter one of Wellcome Trust’s biggest equity investments.
It is understood that the Trust built the stake in San Francisco-based Twitter when it was a private company, and before it floated in New York last month at $26 a share (the shares are now trading at about $56).
The London-based charity spent £726 million on its charitable activities between 2008 to 2011, most of it in grants to medical research in the UK.
The five biggest recipients were the Francis Crick Institute, University of Oxford, University of Cambridge, University College London and Imperial College London.
The trust was established in 1936 under the terms of the will of Henry Wellcome, co-founder of Burroughs Wellcome & Co., a forerunner of what has become GlaxoSmithKline today.
It helped fund the Human Genome Project in the 1990s and is providing £120 million toward the construction of the Crick Institute.
Among medical research charities, the Trust’s endowment is exceeded only by that of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in Seattle.
Its biggest equity investments as of 30 September were a £255 million stake in Marks & Spencer, £216 million in Vodafone and £149 million in HSBC. It recently sold its holding in Wonga, the controversial British payday lender.
Ben Adams
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