Samsung’s investment in ASML earned it a staggering 17x returns

ASML is a Dutch-based company. It is recognized as the top suppliers of advanced chip manufacturing equipment globally. Back then, it was hard for ASML to sustain itself. For this reason, the company asked its customers for funds to support the business operations. Samsung was one of the biggest consumers of the company so the South Korean tech giant decided to help ASML.

As per the available information, the South Korean tech company Samsung made this investment back in 2012. Samsung purchased 3% of ASML. Even though the corporation sold half of its shares in 2016, it was a wise decision because the investment’s value has increased 17 times since then. Besides Samsung, there were two other investors namely TSMC and Intel. In contrast to the 3% share of Samsung, TSMC acquired 15% whereas Intel acquired 5%. Such investments helped the company a lot. It is dealing with huge demands for advanced EUV chip manufacturing machines.

In the past years, the prices of ASML’s shares have gone up. Within the last three months, the value of shares increased around 15.9% to over $724. Samsung currently owns 6.3 million shares, or 1.6% of the firm, for a total market value of $4.56 billion. When you consider that Samsung only spent $278 million for its whole 3% ownership in ASML back in 2012, that is a 17x increase and an outstanding return on investment.

In addition to this, in 2016, Samsung pulled half of its ASML shares. If it had not done so, then its gains would even be higher today. On the other hand, the Taiwan-based semiconductor manufacturing firm sold all of its ASML shares back in 2015. These are hidden gains, so if ASML’s stock price falls, the value of Samsung’s shareholding will be as well. The share price may go up, which would improve Samsung’s return on investment, or it could go the other way.