Looks like Bill Gates has been diversifying into the railroad industry for quite some time. With recent purchases, he has become the largest individual shareholder through Cascade, which he is the sole owner of. The charitable trust with his wife also owns a chunk of CN stock. Total is worth about 1.8 billion dollars. At least he's making money on it. He's been buying stock since at least 2000.According to an article: "Taking stock splits (but not dividends) into account, an investor holding 100 CN shares worth $2,700 (Canadian) back in 1995 would currently have 600 shares worth $31,752." From http://www.ble.org/pr/news/headline.asp?id=15879 CN has had a lot of problems recently with derailments and such, so I was kind of surprised to see it has performed so well, not just since 1995, but also in the more recent past.
It would be interesting to see a list of all of the companies he invests in. Sure Microsoft is worth billions upon billions.. but it's nowhere near his ONLY investment. I don't know a lot about what else he invests in, but I've seen similar articles off and on about other successful businesses he has invested in, and from what I've seen he certainly doesn't put his eggs in one basket. Warren Buffet is the same way. I believe he is a majority stock holder of Dairy Queen, and possibly Pepsi as well. (I heard KFC but that's owned by Pepsi)
Buffett also owns Fruit of the Loom. An amazing guy. I think he owns part of Coca-Cola actually because he was criticized for sitting on the board of Coke when Berkshire owns Dairy Queen which buys Coke - supposed conflict of interest. Yeah, Gates also owns a chunk of some mining interests in Canada. Guess since he lives so close to the Great White North, he appreciates what we have to offer BTW, Buffett lives in Omaha - smack dab in the middle of America. Talk about an advertisement for the average American makes good!
