Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Bill Gates Slashing Stake in Pacific Ethanol (PEIX)

Not the best timing on this trade so I'm guessing Cascade is doing it for image/political reasons.
The alternative is they think PEIX is going broke.
From earth2tech:

Bill Gates is making good on his plans, announced last November, to sell off his 20.6 percent stake in Pacific Ethanol.

Cascade Investment, the private investment and holding company controlled by Gates, has been whittling down the stake trade by trade, according to recent filings with the SEC.

The latest round of selling began with the sale of 300,000 common shares into the market on May 28 . The next day, Cascade converted 1 million shares of preferred stock into 2 million shares of PEIX common stock worth $8 a share each. Cascade then began to immediately sell those common shares off at a huge discount - in the market, investors paid between $3.40 and $3.75 a share for them. By last Friday, Cascade had sold off a total of 1.4 million shares in three days, or roughly $5 million worth of Pacific Ethanol stock....MORE