Kerkorian Looks to Take Ford Driver's Seat

Billionaire investor Kirk Kerkorian hasn't lost his appetite for U.S. automakers.

His investment firm, Tracinda, announced a tender offer on Monday aimed at increasing his stake in Ford F, which gives the 90-year-old activist a trifecta of attempts at reviving Detroit's Big Three. He has previously waged activist battles at both General Motors GM and Chrysler.

In both cases, Kerkorian failed to gain control over his target. This time around, he faces the added complication of targeting a company that is controlled by the Ford family, which holds a 4% stake of special voting stock that controls 40% of the automaker's voting rights.

Tracinda, in a press release, said it would make a cash offer of $8.50 a share for up to 20 million Ford shares. The offer represents a 13.3% premium to Ford's closing price of $7.50 on Friday. The deal, which represents about 1% of Ford's outstanding shares, would raise Tracinda's total stake to 5.6% of the company -- crossing the 5% threshold that requires investors to disclose their stake in filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The firm already owns 100 million Ford shares, or 4.7% of the outstanding stock, which it began accumulating on April 2 at an average cost of $6.91 a share. Tracinda gave no indication that it has plans to become anything more than a passive shareholder.

"Tracinda has been following Ford closely since the company released its fourth-quarter results which indicated that Ford's management was starting to receive highly meaningful traction in its turnaround efforts," Tracinda said in the release. "Last week this was reinforced by Ford's first-quarter 2008 results, achieved despite the difficult U.S. economic environment."