Exactly how many shares of BP does the Gates Fund really own? 43 million?

[Hannah Bell]

/t to commenter David C. for telling me that I badly understated the BP stock holdings of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation which I reported first as 4 million and than revised to more than 7 million shares. Here's where I got my original figures.

http://247wallst.com/2009/02/17/bill-gates-top-holdings-abt-an-brk-a-bp-cni-cat-ko-cost-cci-ek-xom-fmx-jnj-mcd-ottr-rsg-sgp-wmt-wmi/

But in yesterday's NYT, Green blogger John Rudolph ("How British is BP?) reports that the Gates Fund actually owns an astonishing 43 million shares.

http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/14/just-how-british-is-bp/

The estimates keep climbing on par with BP's spill estimates. Stay tuned.

http://michaelklonsky.blogspot.com/2010/06/exactly-how-many-shares-of-bp-does.html


if so, that's about 1.3 billion in bp stock, unless i misplaced a decimal somewhere...

[waiting for hope]

1. Ya know ... this might pull the plug on

Gates' money bomb into pushing out public schools .. :shrug:

[girl gone mad]

3. The cynic in me says..

he won't lose a dime in the end.

The wealthy own our government and they believe themselves to be entitled to risk-free 18% annual returns merely for renting out their money. It's why we got stuck with the disastrous bank bailouts and why there is now a worldwide push for austerity measures (which will disproportionately hurt the middle class).

[JackRiddler]

2. QUICK! Time for another bullshit announcement about giving away half his fortune!

I thought the Glorious Gates already gave away his fortune! But no matter! Billionaire so good to us, thank you billionaires who give us life and food!

[Ichingcarpenter]

4. Thank you so much...Hannah Bell

So by giving to the Gates Foundation you give to BP.

I knew it but didn't know it was that much.

[snagglepuss]

5. k & r nt

[Greyhound]

6. K&R, but just one point, anybody/thing with tens of billions of dollars, owns some of

just about everything. I'm no fan of the pillage of our schools by the foundation and I despise Bill Gates the man, but this is not really indicative of anything in particular about the foundation. Like the other oil companies, BP has been a solid stock forever.

[Hannah Bell]

7. i saw a list of the biggest stockholders: gates foundation is in the top 60, i believe.

owns something like .5% of the company.

most of those bigger than him were financial corps.

[leftstreet]

8. K&R