The Mormon Church's secretive $100 billion fund scored a 900% gain on GameStop - and boosted its Tesla bet by 39%

• The Mormon Church's $100 billion fund made a 900% gain on GameStop last quarter.
• Ensign Peak Advisors' stake surged in value from below $900,000 to $8.7 million.
• The church fund also boosted its Tesla stake by 39% after growing it 3,500% last year.
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The Mormon Church was a surprise winner from the GameStop short squeeze, racking up a 900% gain on the meme stock last quarter, regulatory filings show.

Ensign Peak Advisors - the secretive $100 billion investment arm of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints - bought 46,000 GameStop shares in the fourth quarter of 2020. Its stake ballooned in value from under $900,000 to $8.7 million in the first three months of this year, thanks to GameStop's stock price going stratospheric in January and remaining elevated since then.

The surge in GameStop stock from below $19 to $190 last quarter also catapulted it from Ensign's 1,452nd most-valuable holding to number 455 on the list.

Ensign tapped into the Tesla craze as well, growing its split-adjusted stake in Elon Musk's electric-vehicle company by about 3,500% to 467,000 shares over the course of last year. It bolstered the position by another 39% to nearly 650,000 shares last quarter.

The fund's Tesla stake was worth $433 million at the end of March, making it Ensign's 15th biggest holding. It was 22nd on the list three months earlier.

Ensign trimmed all four of its largest holdings last quarter, but still boasted $2 billion stakes in Apple and Microsoft, and $1 billion-plus positions in Amazon and Alphabet. Notably, it slashed its stake in Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway by 21%, pushing the famed investor's company from its 14th most valuable holding to its 22nd.

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