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Kerkorian Exits General Motors

The painful rehabilitation process of giant automobile manufacture General Motors will have to continue without its main investor, the billionaire, Kirk Kerkorian, who has failed in his attempts to use his holdings in the company for leverage to make changes. The Wall Street reported Friday that Kerkorian will sell all his holdings in General Motors, 28 million stocks, at $29.95 a share, in a deal estamaited to be worth more than $800 million. The paper quoted a source, which is said to be closely related to the sale, saying the shares will be sold to the Bank of America.

Kerkorian?s Tracinda Corp., reported last week that it intends to sell 42 million of its shares in the company, lowering its share from 9.9% to 7.4%. On Thursday, the company disclosed it agreed to sell another 14 million shares of the company in a private deal. After that sale Tarcinda Corp. had 28 million shares left corosponding to 4.95% of General Motors.

Dennis Virag, president of Automotive Consulting Group told reporters that: ?If you look at Kerkorian, he?s a financial investor rather than a strategic investor. And GM at this point in time really needs to look at their business more in terms of a long-term strategy rather than short-term financial gain.? Kerkorian`s representative in General Motors` board of directors resigned his position in October due to disagreement over regulation and strategy arisen after the automotive manufacture decided not to continue the process of going into partnership with Reno-Nissan.