Oracle Went Public 40 Years Ago Today – What Would You Be Worth If You Invested $10k At The IPO… And Never Sold A Share???

Let's play a fun hypothetical game. Let's pretend that it is March 12, 1986 (exactly 40 years ago today). You are a 25-year-old who has just inherited $10,000 from a rich uncle. You are wondering how to put that $10,000 to use. Before you do anything really dumb, you call up a friend from college who is working as a stockbroker.

That friend gives you the following advice:

"Actually, this little database company down in Silicon Valley went public today. I don't even understand what they do, but everyone in the office thinks enterprise data is the future. It's called Oracle. Put all $10,000 into Oracle shares right now!"

You follow his advice.

Oracle went public 40 years ago today, March 12, 1986, at an initial offering price of $15 per share. That day gave birth to what eventually became one of the largest personal fortunes in human history for founder Larry Ellison.

But what about our hypothetical dream scenario? What kind of fortune would you be sitting on today (as an extremely lucky 65-year-old) had you followed your broker's advice, bought $10,000 worth of shares at IPO, rode the dot-com crash, the 2008 financial crisis, and the massive AI boom of the 2020s without ever selling a single share???

(Photo by William STEVENS/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images)

$10,000 Invested At IPO

Buying in at the initial offering price of $15 per share, your $10,000 would have netted you exactly 666 shares of Oracle stock. However, today you would not be sitting on just 666 shares. Over the years, Oracle has conducted TEN stock splits:

• Initial Purchase (March 12, 1986): Your $10,000 at the $15 IPO price buys you exactly 666 shares.
• Split 1 (March 25, 1987): A 2-for-1 split doubles your stockpile to 1,332 shares.
• Split 2 (December 21, 1987): Another 2-for-1 split brings you to 2,664 shares.
• Split 3 (July 3, 1989): A 2-for-1 split doubles your count to 5,328 shares.
• Split 4 (November 9, 1993): Another 2-for-1 split bumps your holding to 10,656 shares.
• Split 5 (February 23, 1995): A 3-for-2 split increases your stack to 15,984 shares.
• Split 6 (April 17, 1996): Another 3-for-2 split rockets your count to 23,976 shares.
• Split 7 (August 18, 1997): A 3-for-2 split brings you to 35,964 shares.
• Split 8 (March 1, 1999): Another 3-for-2 split increases your holding to 53,946 shares.
• Split 9 (January 19, 2000): A 2-for-1 split doubles your stack to 107,892 shares.
• Split 10 (October 13, 2000): The final 2-for-1 split doubles your count one last time, landing you at a staggering 215,784 total shares.

Thanks to the magic of those ten splits, your original block of 666 shares would have ballooned into a massive stockpile of 215,784 shares.

As I type this article, Oracle is trading at $163 per share. So those 215,784 shares, which you bought 40 years ago today for just $10,000, would be worth $35,172,792.

But that's not actually the full story.

Oracle, like many high-growth tech companies, didn't issue a dividend in its early years. The company issued its first-ever dividend in 2009. So now let's pretend your hypothetical college buddy stockbroker called you up in 2009 and said:

"Hey, you know those Oracle shares which you still own and are worth nearly $4 million today? First off, you're welcome. Secondly, I just enrolled your account in a dividend reinvestment plan (DRIP). Going forward, whenever Oracle issues a dividend, instead of receiving cash, you'll use that money to automatically buy more shares. Cool? Ok, see you at the reunion! You owe me a beer!"

Fast forward to the present. If you held onto all of your shares and remained enrolled in the DRIP plan, today you would have roughly 280,000 shares of Oracle.

At today's price per share of $163, your $10,000 investment in 1986 would now be worth…

$45,640,000

And actually, it gets better.

Because you now own ~280,000 shares, your quarterly dividend payouts on Oracle's current $2.00 annual rate would generate $560,000 in completely passive cash every single year.

That's $45.6 million in net worth and $560,000 in annual passive income, all from a single $10,000 investment 40 years ago.

But here's one more fun fact: Oracle went public on March 12, 1986. Microsoft went public… the very next day! I bet you'd like to know how much that investment would be worth today…