Autoblog

Kirk Kerkorian and his investment firm Tracinda Corp. made waves last summer by increasing their stake in Ford Motor Company by some 40 million shares to a total of 140.8 million shares, which accounted for 6.49% of the automaker and made the billionaire the largest single shareholder outside the Ford family itself. At the time Tracinda made the purchase, Ford stock was going for $8.50 per share. The company announced today that it has sold 7.3 million shares of Ford at an average price of $2.43 per share, leaving it with 133.5 million shares of the Blue Oval and a loss totaling some $44,311,000. Tracinda has also said that it may unload its entire investment in Ford and has already contacted an investment bank to that end, though we imagine it's waiting for the stock price to improve before divesting itself completely.

When Kerkorian increased his stake in Ford last summer, there was big talk of the billionaire being behind the automaker's turnaround effort, as well as possibly buying an even larger stake in the company if things went well. As we all know, things have not gone well, and Kerkorian is taking what's left of his investment and going back to what he knows best: investments in gaming, hospitality, oil and gas.

[Source: The Detroit News, Photo by William Thomas Cain/Getty ]

In late April, billionaire investor Kirk Kerkorian made public his intention to have Tracindo Corp., his investment company, buy up an additional 20 million shares of Ford stock to up his ownership of the Blue Oval from 4.7% to 5.6%. He offered $8.50/share, which at the time was a small premium over Ford's share price of $7.50 and today is a big premium over its current price of $6.16/share. He set a deadline for Ford shareholders to respond to his offer by yesterday at 5 PM, and boy did they. Kirkorian received offers to buy 1 billion shares of Ford, 980,000,000 more than he intends to buy. As such, Tracinda Corp. will easily acquire the additional shares it needs to reach 5.6% ownership of Ford at a price of around $170 million, but hasn't stated that it will buy up anymore of the Dearborn-based automaker. Ford's board of directors has already stated on record that it is neutral and has no opinion about Kirkorian's increase in shares. We wonder if their mood will change when he asks to sit down at the table with them at talk business.

[Source: Automotive News, sub. req'd]