NEW YORK (AP) -- Here's something that might provide a bit of solace amid the plunging values in your retirement accounts: Warren Buffett is losing lots of money, too. So are Kirk Kerkorian, Carl Icahn and Sumner Redstone.
Topping that list is Buffett, who has seen the value of equity in his company, Berkshire Hathaway, fall by about $13.6 billion, or 22 percent, so far this year, to leave his holdings valued at $48.1 billion. Oracle founder and CEO Larry Ellison has seen his equity stake fall by $6.2 billion, or about 24 percent, to $20.1 billion, according to the research that ran from the start of the year through the close of trading Oct. 29.
Rounding out the top five in that study were Microsoft's Steve Ballmer, whose company equity fell by $5.1 billion to $9.4 billion; Amazon.com's Jeff Bezos, whose equity fell by $3.6 billion to $5.7 billion; and News Corp.'s Rupert Murdoch, with a $4 billion contraction to $3 billion.
A growing number of executives at companies including Boston Scientific, XTO Energy Corp. and Williams Sonoma Inc. have been forced to sell stakes in their companies to cover stock loans to banks and brokers. The company stock was used as collateral for those loans. The falling prices triggered what is known as a "margin call."
Investors in Chesapeake Energy Corp. were recently faced with the surprising news that company CEO Aubrey McClendon was forced to sell almost 95 percent of his holdings -- representing more than a 5 percent stake in the natural gas giant -- to meet a margin call. His firesale of more than 31 million shares, valued at nearly $570 million, put downward pressure on Chesapeake's stock in the days surrounding the mid-October transaction.
Redstone, the famed 85-year-old chairman and controlling shareholder of CBS Corp. and Viacom Inc., was forced to sell $233 million worth of nonvoting shares in those companies. That was done to satisfy National Amusements' loan covenants, which had been violated when the value of its CBS and Viacom shares fell below required levels in the loan agreements.
Earlier this year, billionaire Kerkorian's investment firm Tracinda Corp. paid about $1 billion, at an average share price of near $7.10, for about 141 million shares in Ford Motor Corp. That represented a 6.49 percent stake in Ford.
Those shares have tumbled as the automaker's financial condition weakened considerably amid slumping sales and tighter credit conditions. That drove Tracinda to disclose twice in recent weeks that it was selling some of its Ford stock -- one batch of 7.3 million shares sold at an average price of $2.43 each, and the other for 26.4 million shares at an average sale price of $2.01 each. That means for about a quarter of his total Ford holdings, he got $71 million.
Activist investor Icahn faces an equally ugly situation with his investment in Yahoo Inc. earlier this year, when he bought about 69 million shares for a nearly 5 percent ownership stake. As of June 30, those shares were valued at about $20.60 each, according to a regulatory filing.
But his Yahoo holdings are off sharply, with the company's shares trading around $13 each. That means he's down more than $500 million since late June. Icahn didn't respond to a request for comment.
As Tuck's Hansen notes, the current market conditions are serving up a reality check -- not just for individual investors but for the biggest names around.
"Fishing isn't called catching, and investing isn't just called making money," Hansen said. "We have to remember that things can go down by a lot."
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