What Forrest Gump’s Investment In Apple Could Be Worth Today

UK based online retailer FancyDressCostumes.co.uk blogger Martin Delaney has estimated what return the fictional Forrest Gump (Tom Hanks) and Dan Taylor [AKA Lieutenant Dan] (Gary Sinese) would have yielded from their investment in ‘some kind of fruit company’ in the former’s eponymous 1994 movie.

You can view a short clip of the relevant scene from the film here:
http://bit.ly/LSNyyv

By combining publicly available information about Apple’s history and inputting realistic figures where accurate data is not available, it is possible to track the duo’s investment from inception all the way to the present day.

It is worth noting that some data was excluded from the calculations, such as the unspecified amount of equity that Forrest Gump sells within a couple of years to pay for the renovation of his local church and construction of a medical centre.

Martin Delaney, who is a company Director, says ‘Just like millions of other consumers we have been captivated by Apple’s innovation over the past ten years. As a way of illustrating this growth we thought it would be interesting to consider what return Forrest Gump’s investment in Apple would be worth in the present day, especially since it was made at such an early stage in the company’s history’.

The profits from the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company that Lt. Dan used to buy into Apple were calculated to be $100,000, giving the duo a 3% share of the business in 1978. The film is based upon a novel of the same name authored by Winston Groom and published in 1986.

According to the costume retailer’s estimations, at the time of the book’s publication Mr. Gump and Lt. Dan’s interest in Apple would have been worth $49,092,295. In 1994, just eight years later, the movie version of this story was released and their position would have increased to $91,540,520. The return over this period is decent, beating the S&P 500 in terms of price growth, but lagging slightly behind if dividends were re-invested.

Although the above figures calculate a more than decent return on investment, Delaney notes that it was after Steve Jobs returned as CEO in 1997 and the subsequent fifteen years where the colossal gains in their investment would have started to take affect. Notably, as of 2nd July 2012 Apple shares were trading at $591, thereby sky-rocketing their position up to a valuation of $6,980,702,880.

The fancy dress retailer is looking forward to seeing how Mr. Gump’s investment fares over the next decade with Tim Cook as CEO.

You can read Martin Delaney’s blog and financial calculations here:
http://bit.ly/OdkQXl