DETROIT, June 14 (UPI) -- A spokesman for billionaire investor Kirk Kerkorian says Ford Motor Co. stockholders have stampeded to offer up hundreds of millions of shares to him.
Kerkorian's company, Tracinda Corp., was offered 826 million Ford shares in an $8.50-per-share tender offer that concluded Friday, illustrating the eagerness of stock investors to unload their positions in the struggling automaker, The Detroit Free Press reported Saturday.
With Ford's stock trading at $6.27 per share at Friday's stock market close, the tender offer price represented a substantial premium over the market price.
Tracinda spokesman Tom Johnson told the newspaper that Kerkorian plans to buy 20 million of the offered shares at the $8.50 price, which would give him control of 5.3 percent of outstanding Ford shares and making him the company's fifth-largest shareholder.
