From Russia, With Love: Owner of GAZ buys 5% of GM

Okay, so maybe GAZ wasn’t really interested in buying Land Rover and Jaguar from Ford, but that hasn’t stopped Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska from buying a big chunk of another U.S. automaker. Deripaska is the owner of GAZ and he just bought 5% of General Motors on the open market. Said to be worth about $16.8 billion, Deripaska seems perfectly capable of coughing up the $900 million it will take him to purchase his 5% at Monday’s closing price of $32.45 per share. Besides his links to GAZ and now GM, and along with rumors of his interest in Jaguar/Land Rover, Deripaska’s Basic Element firm is also about to invest $1.54 billion in Magna International. Seriously, this guy needs a hobby other than spending money.

By frank.filipponio@weblogsinc.com
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Okay, so maybe GAZ wasn’t really interested in buying Land Rover and Jaguar from Ford, but that hasn’t stopped Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska from buying a big chunk of another U.S. automaker. Deripaska is the owner of GAZ and he just bought 5% of General Motors on the open market. Said to be worth about $16.8 billion, Deripaska seems perfectly capable of coughing up the $900 million it will take him to purchase his 5% at Monday’s closing price of $32.45 per share. Besides his links to GAZ and now GM, and along with rumors of his interest in Jaguar/Land Rover, Deripaska’s Basic Element firm is also about to invest $1.54 billion in Magna International. Seriously, this guy needs a hobby other than spending money.

[Source: Automotive News, sub. req.]