Billionaire Kirk Kerkorian's Tracinda Corp. investment firm appears to have unloaded its entire stake in General Motors, CNBC's David Faber reported on "Closing Bell."
Bank of America sold a block of 28 million GM shares at $29.25 each Thursday afternoon, causing speculation that Kerkorian sold the last remaining stake he held in the automaker, Faber said.
"Almost everybody in the market has decided that had to be Kerkorian disposing of the additional 4.95% stake that he had in GM," Faber said.
Later, the Wall Street Journal reported Kerkorian had sold his remaining GM shares to Bank of America, according to people familiar with the matter. Today, Bank of America confirmed it had bought 28 million shares of GM, but it did not give any further details on the transaction.
Earlier on Thursday, Tracinda said it had agreed to sell 14 million shares of GM, cutting Kerkorian's stake in the automaker to 4.95% from 7.4%. That transaction put Kerkorian below the 5% threshold under which he would have been required to report any further trades.
In a U.S. regulatory filing, Tracinda said it had agreed to sell the first set of shares in a private transaction for $28.75 a share.
Last week, Tracinda sold 14 million shares of GM for $33 a share.
Tracinda's sell-off follows the resignation last month of Jerome York, a key Kerkorian adviser, from the GM board. York wrote that he had "grave reservations" about GM's abilities to compete against Asian automakers.
York resigned shortly after GM decided against joining an alliance with Renault SA of France and Nissan Motor of Japan. The three companies began discussing a potential three-way alliance after public prodding by Tracinda.