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Kerkorian Starts Tender for Ford Shares

TSC Staff

Kirk Kerkorian's Tracinda has started its cash tender offer to acquire up to 20 million shares of Ford (F - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr) for $8.50 each.

In April, Kerkorian said he owned 100 million Ford shares, or 4.7% of the total outstanding, that he had started buying earlier in the month at an average cost of $6.91 a share. Tracinda said at the time it would make an offer of $8.50 a share for up to 20 million additional shares.

The offer represented a 13.3% premium to Ford's closing price the day before the announcement. Ford was recently down 1.4% at $8.09.

Kerkorian has previously waged activist battles at both General Motors (GM - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr) and Chrysler. In both of those situations, he didn't gain control of the company. In the case of Ford, Tracinda has given no indication it plans to become anything more than a passive shareholder.

GM was recently down 3.6%. Elsewhere in the auto sector, Honda (HMC - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr) was losing 1.7%, but Toyota (TM - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr) was tacking on 0.1%.