YESTERDAY WAS A good day for anyone who owns a piece of Amazon. But if you’re the company’s founder, you can times that by about a million.
The e-commerce giant’s CEO, Jeff Bezos, will start today $7 billion (€6.4 billion) richer – based on his assets, that is – after shares in the company soared over 17% on some unexpectedly strong financial results.
The fast-growing but famously loss-making Amazon reported a rare profit of $92 million (€84 million) for the second three months of the year as it clocked up a staggering $23 billion (€21 billion) in revenue.
That compared to a loss of $126 million on turnover of $19.3 billion the same time in 2014.
The figures were enough to send the stock skyward in after-hours trade on the New York exchange, although it remains to be seen if the big rise will hold up today.
Bezos still owns about 18% of the company – more than three times the share of the next-largest, institutional investor – worth about $47.5 billion (€43.5 billion) last night, or roughly $7 billion more than in the morning.
In total, his personal fortune stood at over $50 billion (€46 billion) yesterday, according to Forbes, making him the world’s fifth-richest person. In 2013 he bought the Washington Post for $250 million.
Amazon time
Meanwhile Amazon, which started life in 1995 as an online book store Bezos ran from his Seattle garage, has been continuing its spread into all kinds of retail and logistics operations, including most recently grocery deliveries.
The service is up and running in several US cities, but earlier this week it was reported the Amazon Fresh operation was also coming to the UK.
However Amazon is also facing probes in the EU over whether it shut out rival e-book sellers with anti-competitive contracts, as well as for its tax dealings with Luxembourg.
We doubt Bezos is worrying much about any of that today.
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