WASHINGTON (AP) -- Buying up small blocks of stock, billionaire investor Kirk Kerkorian quietly accumulated millions of shares of Ford Motor Co. in a series of purchases in April that left the automaker "completely unaware" of his involvement until later in the month.
Kerkorian's Tracinda Corp. on Friday launched his previously announced $170 million cash offer to buy an additional 20 million shares of Ford as new details emerged about how he bought 100 million shares of the company -- about a 4.7 percent ownership stake -- without notice.
In a government filing, Tracinda outlined an April 4 meeting between Ford Chief Executive Officer Alan Mulally, Chief Financial Officer Don Leclair and Jerry York, a top Kerkorian adviser.
During the meeting, York told Mulally and Leclair that "Tracinda had an interest in investing in Ford," according to the Securities and Exchange Commission filing. Ford said in a statement that York "made what we thought was an off-the-cuff remark that Tracinda might be interested in investing in Ford."
Company officials said they did not know at the time that Tracinda had begun buying Ford stock on April 2 and "we were completely unaware of Tracinda's investment until the weekend of April 26 and 27." Chairman Bill Ford "was as surprised as" Mulally and Leclair when he learned about the investment during that same weekend.
According to Tracinda's disclosure, Kerkorian's team had already racked up at least 6.95 million shares of Ford by the April 4 meeting. Tracinda bought no more than 827,347 shares at a time -- some buys were made in blocks of 100 or 200 shares -- allowing them to avoid detection during two days when nearly 133 million Ford shares changed hands.
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