Vanguard could be sailing the high tide created by Amazon’s $13.7 billion deal to acquire Whole Foods.

It is, after all, Whole Foods’ largest shareholder and the third-largest shareholder of Amazon, according to a Philadelphia Business Journal report by Jeff Blumenthal.

As of March 31, the mutual fund giant in Malvern owned 30.8 million shares of Whole Foods stock, so at Amazon’s purchase price of $42 per share, Vanguard’s stake in the deal is worth $1.29 billion. The investment firm also owned 26 million shares of Amazon. The only companies with a greater Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund stake are Apple, Alphabet, and Microsoft.

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Independent Advisor for Vanguard Investors Editor Dan Weiner downplayed the merger’s upside for mutual fund investors based on the fact that Vanguard also invests in the food retailers whose stock prices are sinking because of the news.

“It probably won’t move the needle much,” he said.

Read more about Vanguard’s role as a leading investor in the Amazon-Whole Foods deal in the Philadelphia Business Journal here, and check out previous VISTA Today coverage of the local company here.

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