Kerkorian sells off remaining Ford shares

[Mrs. Sharon B. Hodge]

Kerkorian sells off remaining Ford shares

DETROIT (Reuters) – Billionaire investor Kirk Kerkorian has sold off all of his remaining shares of Ford Motor Co, a spokeswoman for his investment firm, Tracinda Corp, said on Monday.

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Billionaire investor Kirk Kerkorian leaves the Roybal Federal Building in Los Angeles August 20, 2008. …

Tracinda, which briefly ranked as Ford's largest outside investor earlier this year, said in a regulatory filing in October that it had begun working with bankers to sell the 133.5 million shares of the No. 2 U.S. automaker it still held at that time.

It was not immediately clear when Tracinda had completed those remaining sales of Ford stock.

Kerkorian's final pullout from Ford completed a costly retreat for the activist investor, who has a mixed track record with investments at all three Detroit-based automakers.

A spokesman for Ford could not immediately be reached for comment.

Kerkorian, 91, previously held a nearly 10-percent stake in General Motors Corp and made a failed bid for Chrysler LLC last year.

He surprised analysts and investors in April when he began buying Ford shares and spent over $1 billion to take a stake in Ford at an average price per share of $7.10.

At its peak, Kerkorian held a 6.5 percent stake in Ford and had offered in June to support the automaker's turnaround efforts with an infusion of additional capital.

Ford has been widely considered to be the best-positioned of the three Detroit automakers at a time when all three have been hit hard by declining sales and tight credit.

When GM and Chrysler negotiated $17.4 billion of emergency loans from the U.S. government earlier this month, Ford held back, saying it expected to be able to weather the downturn on its own.

But conditions across the auto industry have taken a dramatic turn for the worse since September when credit suddenly tightened for both car shoppers and dealers.

In late October, Tracinda began selling Ford shares at $2.43, representing a loss of almost 66 percent from what the fund paid on average.

Since then, Ford's shares have traded between a low of $1.02 in November to a high of $3.54 earlier this month.

Ford shares fell almost 5 percent in trading on Monday to $2.18.

The Ford family holds just under 3 percent of the automaker's shares but controls 40 percent of the voting power through a separate class of shares.

Kerkorian's offer of additional capital for Ford had been seen as an endorsement of the company's strategy and management under Chief Executive Alan Mulally.

But Kerkorian's record as an activist investor had also raised questions earlier this year about whether his investment could be a threat to the Ford family's continued control of the automaker.


(Reporting by Kevin Krolicki; Editing by Phil Berlowitz)