FACTBOX-KEY FACTS ABOUT INVESTOR KIRK KERKORIAN
Reuters, UK
Nov 22 2006
Nov 22 – Investor Kirk Kerkorian said on Wednesday he had reduced
his stake in General Motors Corp. (GM.N: Quote, Profile, Research)
to 7.4 percent from 9.9 percent, selling $462 million in stock.
On the same day, Kerkorian announced an $825 million tender offer
that could raise his stake in MGM Mirage Inc (MGM.N: Quote, Profile,
Research) to about 62 percent of the hotel and casino operator.
Here are some key facts about Kerkorian:
* Estimated by Forbes magazine to have a fortune of $8.7 billion,
he was born in 1917 in California to Armenian immigrant parents. The
youngest of four children, he dropped out of school and boxed before
joining the Royal Air Force to fly supply planes from Canada to
Britain during World War Two.
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* After the war, Kerkorian bought surplus war planes to fly gamblers
from Los Angeles to Las Vegas. He pocketed his first fortune when
the business, called Trans International Airlines, went public in 1965.
Then he sold it in 1968 to Transamerica Corp. for more than $100
million in cash and stock.
* Kerkorian has a record of trading properties in Las Vegas and
Hollywood, most famously movie studio MGM, which he has owned three
times. He sold MGM to Ted Turner in 1986 and bought it back months
later. He sold MGM in 1990 and bought it for a third time in 1996
before selling it again for $3 billion to a group of investors led
by Sony Corp.
* Kerkorian was the largest investor in automaker Chrysler before its
link-up with Germany’s Daimler-Benz in 1998. In 1996, he had launched
an unsuccessful