Bill Gates Buys More Republic Services; Has 25% Stake

Date: November 13, 2012

Source: News Room

Billionaire Bill Gates continues to build his ownership stake in Republic Services (Phoenix, AZ) which now stands at 24.8 percent of the company. That is worth about $2.54 billion at current prices. From Sep. 26 through Nov. 16 his investment company Cascade Investment LLC bought another 12.7 million shares for about $341.7 million. The price of the shares were as low as $26.5 earlier this month which likely led to some opportunistic purchases given his belief in the longer-term fundamentals of the company.

Cascade is headed by Michael Larson who is a director at several of the companies he has invested in on behalf of Gates, including Republic Services, AutoNation, Group Televisa and Ecolab. He and Gates appear to believe in the longer term prospects of Republic which has generally enjoyed relative stability, and strong cash flow. They may see its existing portfolio of landfills as being undervalued by the investment community who may be overlooking the future value of a diminishing resource as it becomes increasingly difficult to site and build new landfills.

See also: "Bill Gates Accumulates More Republic Services Shares," (www.wasteinfo.com/news/wbj20121003E.htm), September 29, 2012.

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