Ran into an older gentleman at the local dealer mall. He was reading his newspaper sitting in a very inconspicuous Cavalier on the side of the road. The only thing noticeable was that the signage on the Cavalier said “SATURN SUCKS” and was parked right in front of the Saturn dealership.
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It has been reported in a recent mandatory filing of AutoNation, the dealer group with 321 dealerships across 15 states that Bill Gates ex-CEO of Microsoft Corp. has bought a significant amount of shares belonging to the group. At the latest market valuation, the 9.9 million shares under the control of Gates is worth somewhere in the neighborhood of $90 million and change.
The dealer holding group has sold 328,963 vehicles this past year.
Bill Gates as part of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, has purchased 2.6% of the company. Cascade Investments LLC, also controlled by Gates owns 2.9% of the company.
The largest shareholder in the firm AutoNation is hedge fund manager Edward Lampert. He owns 39.9% of AutoNation. Lampert became famous when he bought out Kmart to turn around and sell it to Sears Holdings Co.
Computer entrepreneur Michael Dell also announced in May, he is looking to form a dealership holding company with Jeffrey Ranchor, the president of Sonic Automotive.
