If You'd Invested $1,000 in Coca-Cola’s IPO, This Is How Much Money You'd Have Now
On May 8, 1886, John S. Pemberton created a drink called Coca-Cola (NYSE: KO). It was served nine times a day to the customers at a single soda fountain in Atlanta, Georgia. By 1895, Coke was consumed in every state of the country. By the time the company sold shares to the public in 1919, Coca-Cola was opening bottling plants around the world from the Philippines to Europe.
Coca-Cola's initial public offering (IPO) was on Sept. 5, 1919. Shares of the company were first sold at $40 per share. The stock has split 11 times over the years, including one stock dividend in 1927. Unfortunately, a stock split is not free money. You receive more shares, but the stock price is cut proportionally so that the value of your investment stays the same.
If you are lucky enough to have had a great-grandfather or -grandmother buy one share of Coke stock at the IPO price -- which might have happened if your relatives are from Quincy, Florida -- that one share would have turned into 9,216 shares after all the stock splits. Those shares would be worth $486,604 today at the current market quote of $52.80 per share.
Source Fool.com
