Bill Gates Goes Deeper Into Autos (AN, MSFT, KMX, BRK-A)

We noted just last week that Bill Gates was getting more entrenched in the waste disposal sector.  It turns out that Mr. Gates is getting deeper into the auto-retailing sector as well.  In an SEC filing after the closing bell, Gates added some 500,000 shares to his stake of AutoNation, Inc. (NYSE: AN).  His Cascade Investment LLC investment vehicle bought 483,800 at a weighted average price of $17.608 and bought another 16,200 shares at a weighted average price of $18.217.  Both transaction dates took place on October 29, 2009.

Gates almost caught the top-tick on the buys and the 9.77 million shares traded on that Thursday was the most active trading day seen in at least three months due to it also being the post-earnings report day.  Gates is of course still the largest holder of Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT) even if Steve Ballmer is running the show now.

Oddly enough, this comes on the heels of another quarter of declines from Warren Buffett lowering his stake in Carmax Inc. (NYSE: KMX) by Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE: BRK-A) to right at 9 million shares after three straight quarters of declines.

If you add this new count of 11,865,688 shares with what was the June 30 holdings of 10,292,100 shares held by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, this now effectively gives Mr. Gates more than 12% of the outstanding shares of AutoNation.

Jon C. Ogg