BILL Gates transferred $850 million worth of shares last week to Melinda French Gates amid their divorce, according to Securities and Exchange Commission filings.
The Microsoft cofounder transferred 2.25 million shares of the equipment manufacturer Deere to French Gates through his investment firm, Cascade Investment, on Thursday.
The total value of publicly disclosed transfers to French Gates since she and Gates announced their split on May 3 is nearly $4 billion.
The Deere transfer equated to about 7% of Gates’ stake in the company.
Gates and Cascade Investment still owned nearly 29.3 million shares, or 9.3% of the company, after the transfer to French Gates, the filings said.
Cascade Investment didn’t immediately reply to Insider’s request for comment. The fund is led by the extraordinarily secretive Michael Larson, who has earned the nickname “the Gateskeeper.”
Shares of three other stocks worth a combined $3 billion were transferred to French Gates after the divorce announcement: 2.9 million shares of the automotive retailer AutoNation, 14.1 million shares of Canadian National Railway, and 293.5 million shares of the media company Grupo Televisa.
Other stocks that French Gates could receive from Cascade Investment include Republic Services and Ecolab, which are heavily owned positions at the holding company. Through Cascade, Gates also owns shares of Berkshire Hathaway worth more than $18.4 billion.
The Cascade holdings represent about a third of the couple’s net worth, which Forbes estimated at about $130 billion.
The news of the Deere transfer came two days after The New York Times reported on allegations that Gates had pursued women at Microsoft while he was married to French Gates.
Insider
