Gates Takes $500M Stake in Cox
By Mike Farrell -- Multichannel News, 1/24/2002 1:04:00 PM
Microsoft Corp. may have sat on the sidelines during the bidding war for AT&T Broadband, but chairman Bill Gates continues to sniff around cable, purchasing a $500 million stake in Cox Communications Inc., according to Securities and Exchange Commission documents.
According to an amended 10-Q quarterly report filed by Cox Jan. 23, Gates' private investment vehicle, Cascade Investments, purchased 8.1 million shares of Cox Communications in October.
In a separate deal, his private philanthropic foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, purchased another 5.4 million shares of Cox Communications stock.
At Cox Communications' current trading price -- it closed at $37.40 per share Thursday -- the two stakes are worth $504 million.
According to the filing, Gates purchased the shares from Cox Enterprises Inc., the privately held parent of Cox Communications.
The two stakes represent about 3 percent of Cox's outstanding shares.
This is the third major cable investment Gates has made.
In 1997, Microsoft invested $1 billion in Comcast Corp. stock.
In December, after AT&T Broadband agreed to merge with Comcast Corp., Microsoft agreed to covert $5 billion in preferred AT&T Corp. stock into 115 million shares of the new company.
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