GENERAL MOTORS Kerkorian's stock sale is worrisome

DETROIT (AP) -- General Motors Corp. shares, which have lost more than half their value since the beginning of the year, fell an additional 4 percent Wednesday as investors fretted about billionaire Kirk Kerkorian's decision to sell part of his stake in the automaker.
GM shares fell 80 cents to $19.05 Wednesday on the New York Stock Exchange. That is their lowest level since 1982, according to Standard and Poor's equity market analyst Howard Silverblatt.
Kerkorian disclosed in a regulatory filing Tuesday that his sale of 12 million GM shares generated a loss that would be used to offset gains elsewhere in his investment company's portfolio for tax purposes. But Robert Barry, an analyst with Goldman Sachs, said he suspects there are other factors at work, since the sales create such a high risk for Kerkorian's remaining 44 million GM shares.
Health care bill
Barry said Kerkorian may have soured on the world's largest automaker after Kerkorian aide Jerome York failed to win a seat on GM's board. Kerkorian also may have been unimpressed with the health care concessions recently granted to GM by the United Auto Workers that will cut GM's annual health care bill by around $1 billion, he said.
Kerkorian spent about $1.7 billion to build a 9.9 percent stake in GM this year. But he's now about $600 million in the red, counting the almost $110 million loss on the sale of the 12 million shares and the reduced value of his remaining 7.8 percent stake.
GM shares also took a beating this week after Toyota Motor Corp. said it would boost global production by 10 percent in 2006 to more than 9 million vehicles, which could allow it surpass GM in total unit sales for the first time.
GM has been struggling with U.S. market share losses as well as high labor and health care costs, and it might be on the hook for a costly bailout at Delphi Corp., its former parts division, which filed for bankruptcy in October. GM lost $1.6 billion in the third quarter.