Hershey Trust's $10B Q4 2025: 96% of Book in HSY Voting Stock

Hershey Trust Company filed its Q4 2025 Form 13F-HR reporting $10.31 billion in assets under management. The position list runs only five lines. 96.35% of the entire 13F sits in CUSIP 001017466 — Hershey Class B voting common stock — at a reported value of $9.94 billion. The remaining 3.65% is HSY Class A common at $376.0 million. Three trivially small token positions (Samsara, Airbnb, Alector at under $500K combined) round out the book. The pattern is what you would expect from the trust that legally controls The Hershey Company — extreme single-issuer concentration is not a quirk, it is the fiduciary mandate.

Hershey Trust Company exists to administer the Milton Hershey School Trust, a 1909 charitable trust established by Milton S. Hershey to fund the Milton Hershey School. The trust holds the controlling block of Hershey's dual-class voting structure precisely so that the school's mission cannot be derailed by hostile takeover or short-term shareholder pressure. The 13F is the cleanest visible expression of that mandate at scale.

What the 13F shape tells you

$10.31 billion total reported AUM. Five positions. WhaleScore 80.75. The concentration metric is off the chart compared to even other family-trust 13Fs in our database — Greenleaf Trust's 51.45% in Stryker is the closest comparable, and Hershey Trust runs nearly twice that concentration in the founder company.

Why Class B and not just Class A

Hershey's dual-class capital structure is what makes the trust's 13F work. Class A common stock (the publicly tradable shares retail investors hold) carries 1 vote per share. Class B common stock carries 10 votes per share. The trust holds Class B precisely because it provides voting control of the company at substantially lower economic exposure than acquiring an equivalent voting stake through Class A.

The 96.35% Class B concentration is a structural feature. The trust's mandate from Milton Hershey was to maintain control of the company so that earnings could flow to school endowment indefinitely. Selling Class B to diversify the trust portfolio would risk losing voting control — which would defeat the entire purpose of the trust structure.

The 3.65% Class A position

The $376 million Class A common position is a smaller, more recent acquisition that reflects the trust's gradual diversification at the margin. Class A common can be sold or traded without diluting voting control (Class B is the control mechanism). The 3.65% position likely represents:

• Reinvested dividends from Class B holdings, deployed into Class A as a low-friction parking position.
• Tax-aware tactical purchases when Class A trades at a discount to Class B (the conversion ratio can fluctuate).
• Liquidity reserve in case the trust needs to monetize Hershey exposure without triggering Class B conversion.

The tiny token positions

Samsara Inc. (IOT) at $476K, Airbnb (ABNB) at $186K, and Alector (ALEC) at $32K together account for under $700K of the $10.31 billion portfolio. These positions exist because the trust's 13F-HR threshold is $100 million, and once over that threshold the trust must report every position above the share-count minimum. The Samsara and Airbnb stakes are likely artifacts of corporate-action distributions (spin-off dividends, demerger shares) rather than discretionary investment decisions.

The top 10 vs the rest

Top 10 = 100% of AUM (because there are only 5 positions). The book is the single most concentrated 13F we track at this AUM tier.

AUM trajectory

The trust's reported AUM tracks HSY's market cap almost one-for-one — when Hershey's stock price moves, the trust's 13F value moves proportionally. There is no active rebalancing because the position is structural. The 2024 HSY drawdown (cocoa cost inflation, weight-loss-drug demand fears) compressed the trust's AUM; the 2025-2026 recovery is restoring it.

What this 13F means for retail investors

Three observations for readers who follow Hershey or comparable family-trust-controlled companies:

1. The trust will never sell the Class B control block. Any reading of the 13F that implies Milton Hershey School Trust might monetize its Hershey position misunderstands the fiduciary structure. The trust's mandate is to hold, not to diversify.
2. The Class A retail float is what actually trades. Hershey's day-to-day market liquidity comes from Class A common. The Class B block is a structural overhang in the sense that it cannot be converted or sold without triggering complex corporate governance proceedings.
3. This is the closest US-equity equivalent to a sovereign wealth fund's single-name concentration. Comparable structures exist for Mars (private), Cargill (private), and a handful of other founder-trust-controlled companies. Hershey Trust is the only one that files a US 13F because Hershey's Class A is publicly listed.

How this compares to other family-trust 13Fs

• Hershey Trust Company: 96.35% in HSY Class B — structural control, charitable endowment.
• Greenleaf Trust (Stryker family): 51.45% in SYK — founder-family concentration.
• Walton Family Holdings Trust: Concentrated WMT exposure (separate filing structure).
• Newport Trust Company: Aggregate ESOP/401(k) trustee, varying concentration by underlying plan.

The pattern is clear: family-trust 13Fs report extreme single-name concentration because they are structurally designed to hold founder-company exposure rather than to maximize risk-adjusted returns. Reading them with the same lens as a diversified active manager will lead to wrong conclusions.

What to track

1. Hershey corporate actions. Any equity offering, spin-off, or recapitalization affects the trust's Class B economics. Watch HSY's investor-relations disclosures.
2. Class A vs Class B trading discount. When Class A trades at a meaningful discount to Class B economic value (after adjusting for voting), the trust has historically added to Class A — that is the only signal of opportunistic positioning in the book.
3. Cocoa supply chain. Cocoa is Hershey's largest cost line; sustained price compression directly improves the trust's underlying asset value.

Hershey Trust Company's 13F is the cleanest expression of structural founder-trust concentration in the US institutional universe. 96% of $10.31 billion in one issuer. For more on reading family-trust filings alongside Form 4 and Schedule 13D, see our explainer hub. Compare against other family-trust 13Fs via the institutional signals feed.

Source: SEC Form 13F-HR filed by Hershey Trust Co (CIK 0000908551) for the period ending 2025-12-31; available via EDGAR — Hershey Trust filer index.