Autoblog

Just four months ago, Kirk Kerkorian had a cup out and was asking passers-by for some spare Ford shares. Although he only wanted 20 million of them, he was offered one billion. Turns out those folks trying to get out of the Ford ownership business might have been a bit more prescient than the Tracinda billionaire. After a couple more weeks of watching Ford's share price begin digging toward the center of the earth, Kerkorian seems to want out of Ford himself.

A week ago Tracinda shed 7.3 million shares, and now it has unloaded another 26.4 million at an average price of $2.01 per share. That's about $6 less than he paid for them. Kerkorian used a $600 million line of credit from Bank of America to finance the original billion dollar investment in Ford, using shares in his MGM casino for collateral. In addition to the loss on the Ford investment, MGM's stock price hasn't held up either, and that means he's had to commit more of the casino to B of A. Kerkorian's latest divestment takes him under 5% ownership of The Blue Oval, which means he doesn't have to divulge any more share sales, but we have a feeling it won't be the last.

[Source: Bloomberg]

The NFL season is clearly out of control, Audi just crossed the country in a bunch of diesels you can't buy here, and GM wants to "merge" with Chrysler. But it's not just America that's home to the madness: Ferrari might leave F1, Mitsuoka is selling this thing for €70,000, and today, for a brief moment, Volkswagen was the most valuable company in the entire world based on market capitalization. The reason: Porsche announced it would up its stake in the company to 75-percent. That blasted VW's €210 euro-per-share price up to €1,000 per share, making it more valuable than ExxonMobil and giving Ferdinand Piech reason to start practicing some lines from Scarface. The shares ended the day at €643, which is still pretty good for paper that could be had for less than €200 just about a month ago... Thanks for the tip, Kris!

[Source: Seeking Alpha]

As with this year's American football season, weekly surprises in the car industry are now standard fare. VW recently overtook Ford for the number three spot in global sales, and now the home of the Beetle and the Veyron has overtaken Toyota as the industry's most valuable company based on dollar-converted market capitalization. Just as eyebrow raising is the reason for it: Toyota's stock has dropped 5% to its lowest point in four years due to the usual suspects, while VW's stock has climbed a stratospheric 87% due to the fact that Porsche is busy gobbling up the company. As far as we're concerned, that makes Porsche the real story: one of the industry's smallest players – it sold less than 100,000 cars around the world last year and still set a personal best – is about to be the world's third largest car maker and, for a while at least, its most valuable. What a difference a day a Cayenne makes. Thanks for the tip, bazzz!

[Source: Bloomberg]

We have no idea who will end up with Chrysler once all this madness ends, but we can say that there are already quite a few winners in the process -- DCX stockholders.

While we all sat and played the Hyundai vs. GM vs. ? game, the stock price shot through the roof. Apparently in the minds of shareholders, any buyer would be better than Daimler at this point. The stock closed up four-percent, trading at its highest price since 2001. At the closing bell, the final price was 56.08 Euro (about $73.74) per share. We first mentioned rumors of the sale on Valentine's Day and within a few days the story had exploded into unconfirmed, yet very probable, negotiations between GM and DaimlerChrysler, with Hyundai appearing out of nowhere and then quickly dropping out. While we figured the buyout was probably not going to happen, and that pickups were the basis of the talks between GM and Chrysler, the rumors persist.

[Source: Reuters]

Bloomberg reports that Mazda, the fourth largest automaker in Japan, is currently ahead of its larger rivals in the stock market. The company attributes its stunning success to news of its upcoming utility vehicles, the CX-7 (pictured) and CX-9.
 
"Mazda's earnings growth will finally outpace other automakers, attracting investors this business year and next,'' said fund manager Hiroyoshi Nakagawa. “Hopes for new models are also driving the stock higher.'' Nakagawa is with Societe Generale Asset Management Co. in Tokyo, which oversees some of Mazda’s shares.

Mazda’s stock, advancing 30% so far this year, is also ahead of other automakers such as Renault SA (25%) and BMW AG (24%). Only Volkswagen AG beat Mazda with a 40% growth.

[Source: Bloomberg]