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A secretary bought three shares of his company for $60 each in 1935.
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Grace Groner reinvested her dividends for 75 years and her stake soared to $7.2 million.
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His employer, Abbott, shared Groner’s story in a recent post on the website.
A secretary paid $180 in 1935 for three shares of her employer’s stock. By the time he died in 2010, his investment had ballooned to $7.2 million.
Abbott, a pharmaceutical company, thanked the former employee in a recent post on its website.
“As we celebrate 101 years of dividend payments, we remember one of Abbott’s first investment success stories, that of Grace Groner, who worked as a secretary at Abbott for more than 40 years,” the post reads.
“In 1935, Groner bought three shares of Abbott stock for $60 each. He steadily reinvested his dividend payments and quietly amassed a fortune of $7.2 million. Groner died in 2010, at the age of 100, and was only Then when his multi-million dollar property was discovered.”
He donated his entire fortune to a foundation he had established in support of his alma mater, Lake Forest College. He used the money to fund internships, international studies and student service projects.
Groner held onto his Abbott shares for more than 75 years without selling any, despite several stock splits, and used his dividends to bolster his stake.
He was probably able to leave his savings untouched for so long because of his simple lifestyle. He lived in a one-bedroom house, bought clothes at thrift sales and had no car, the Chicago Tribune reported in 2010.
Its shares would be worth more than $28 million today, excluding dividends, as Abbott’s share price has roughly quadrupled since 2010. The drugmaker’s market value has risen to about $200 billion, which means it now rivals Disney, PepsiCo and Morgan Stanley in size.
Read the original article on Business Insider