This morning, octogenarian investor Kirk Kerkorian bid $8.50 per share for 20m shares of Ford. His offering was 13 percent above FoMoCo's closing share price on Friday. While the total is only a fraction of Ford's $16b market cap, it does create a lot of speculation about his intentions. Tracinda stated they "believe that Ford management under the leadership of Chief Executive Officer Alan Mulally will continue to show significant improvements in its results going forward." Just a few minutes ago, we received this statement from Ford:
The following statement is attributable to Ford Executive Chairman Bill Ford and Ford President and CEO Alan Mulally:
Dearborn, Mich., April 28 -"We welcome confidence in Ford and the progress we are making on our transformation plan. Any investor can purchase Ford shares, which are sold on the open market. The Ford team remains focused on executing our plan to transform Ford into a lean global enterprise delivering profitable growth for all."
After Kerkorian's attempt to take over GM and his bid to buy Chrysler both failed, is The Lion of Las Vegas trying once again to buy a car company? Or is he just making a shrewd investment? With GM struggling to keep its plants open, with Chrysler on the ropes (rumors of bill-paying problems), perhaps Captain Kirk is anticipating the TTAC-foretold dead cat bounce. As always, watch this space.
Maybe Tracinda sees gold in that thar blue oval.
Of the current Detroit three Ford would be the best investment or purchase option at this point in time.
As long as the Ford family has controlling interest via Class B stock this move has to be investment opportunity. That said, the Annual Shareholder’s Meeting is just around the corner. It would be interesting to see if he’s represented in the audience.
Ford continues to earn my vote as Most Likely To Survive. Chrysler is on track to get parted out within the next 18 months. GM is a big question mark.
Maybe Kirk thinks that Ford will benefit from the death of GM and/or Chrysler? Wouldn’t it actually suffer though?
If GM goes bankrupt, they get out of a bunch of debts, and come back to the table all refreshed and able to undercut Ford. At the same time, don’t Ford buyers have to worry that Ford will be next?
I don’t exactly have his track record at investing, so I shouldn’t argue with him. Still, I don’t get it.
looks to me like he is trying to drive up the
price of the shares he has already bought.
why on god’s green earth would anyone buy a
stock for more than market price?
does anyone else want this stock?
is this a pump and dump?
I’m still going with my original prediction. Ford will go down. They are too big to be bought by someone else and the Ford family won’t give up control. They’re too small to be saved by a government bailout. And they don’t have anything left to sell with the exception of Volvo which they need for platform development.
Chrysler is more likely to be sold whole than parted out, although an IPO is another possibility, but they will have to be profitable to do that.
GM will survive either intact or after a transformation via chp 11. If they go chp 11 the government will assist them in some fashion. I don’t think it will go that far – the thought of chp 11 will cause the goverment to do something.
I’m still going with my original prediction. Ford will go down. They are too big to be bought by someone else and the Ford family won’t give up control. They’re too small to be saved by a government bailout. And they don’t have anything left to sell with the exception of Volvo which they need for platform development.
I doubt it. I see evidence that Ford may just make it. They are making more of the right moves than the other 2 of the D3. Maybe Cap’n Kirk wants to ‘ensure’ Ford’s survival and pick over the bones of GM when it slams into the wall. And why should should the government help GM anyway? They just lost a ton of money, have 30 plants idle due to a strike and the arrogant twit at the helm has just had his salary restored to it’s former level. GM is a company with an administrative, manufacturing and sales structure suitable for a 50% + market share with a less than 25% market share, and what is it doing about it? Wagoneer, Lutz & Fritz are all asleep at the switch!
So what you are telling us is that Daimler will likely buy into Ford soon?
But with the Ford family holding 40% voting in the company and all pretty much on board with Mulally’s current plan, I doubt that Kirk could do a lot to affect the company. It’s not like GM or Chrysler. The best Kirk can be hoping for is a seat on the board for someone in his group and reaping the coming benefits of Ford’s apparent turnaround.
“And why should should the government help GM anyway?”
Because they’re the biggest, despite their losses, and GM going down the tubes would have far reaching effects in the economy (so would Ford, just not as much). Your points are all valid, and true, and in many ways (actually all ways) they don’t deserve it, but that won’t matter to the politicians, especially if the congress and Whitehouse are in the hands of the same party.
Maybe he already has some sort of deal worked out already with the Ford family. I always wondered what their take on it was to have control over and to have your wealth tied up in a company that was obviously in danger of going under. Maybe they would take a deal rather than lose it all.