Hi! In a newspaper I have learnt that Mr. Bill Gates ownes (or is
shareholder of) quite a lot of companies besides Microsoft. How can I
get information (online and offline) about those companies? The only
company mentioned in the article was "Corbis".
Thank You!

Hi!

Bill Gates actually has a pretty broad base of investments, from other
technology to biotech to stock photography to satellite-based internet
technology to steel and more!

Much of Bill Gates' investments are managed through his own private
investments firm named Cascade Investment LLC. Details about its
holdings are very scarce, because the company only serves one investor
- Bill Gates. They are not required to disclose anything.

However, I was able to find a lot of companies which have publicly
disclosed Bill Gates as an investor. Below is a list the companies I
was able to find, along with a link to Yahoo Finance's business
profile of them, and the company's home page. If they are not public
companies, I will list other information I find about them. If you
wish to have a more exhaustive list, I recommend the following site:

http://www.placementtracker.com

This company provides reports on Investor placements for a fee. Their
reports seem to run $109. If you enter "cascade" in their search form
on the left and hit the "Investor" box, you will find what you're
looking for.

Now to the list:

ICOS Corporation
http://biz.yahoo.com/p/i/icos.html
http://www.icos.com

Corbis, a stock photography licensing company. Corbis owns one of the
most extensive image collections in the world. Corbis is privately
held, so financial data about them is very scarce. Their page does
list Bill Gates as the companies' founder.
http://www.corbis.com/corporate/press/facts/default.asp
http://www.corbis.com

TeleDesic, which is building "a global, broadband Internet-in-the-SkyŽ
network." This company is also privately held. Their FAQ page lists
Bill Gates as a private investor.
http://www.teledesic.com/about/faqs.htm
http://www.teledesic.com

Corixa
http://biz.yahoo.com/p/c/crxa.html
http://www.corixa.com

Seattle Genetics
http://biz.yahoo.com/p/s/sgen.html
http://www.seattlegenetics.com

Pain Therapeutics
http://biz.yahoo.com/p/p/ptie.html
http://www.paintrials.com/

Alaska Air Group
http://biz.yahoo.com/p/a/alk.html
http://www.alaskaair.com/

Boca Resorts
http://biz.yahoo.com/p/r/rst.html
http://www.bocaresortsinc.com

Liberty Satellite & Technology
http://biz.yahoo.com/p/l/lstta.ob.html
(No home page found)

Canadian National Railway 
http://biz.yahoo.com/p/c/cni.html
http://www.cn.ca/en_index.shtml

Otter Tail Power
http://biz.yahoo.com/p/o/ottr.html
http://www.otpco.com/

Schnitzer Steel Industries
http://biz.yahoo.com/p/s/schn.html
http://www.schn.com

Avista Corp
http://biz.yahoo.com/p/a/ava.html
http://www.avistacorp.com

Cox Communications
http://biz.yahoo.com/p/c/cox.html
http://www.cox.com

As you can see, Bill Gates investments are quite diverse. I want to
again stress that this list is my no means exhaustive, so a report by
the above mentioned Placement Tracker would be your best bet in
obtaining a more complete list.

To answer your question, I visited Microsoft's Bill Gates Profile:
http://www.microsoft.com/billgates/bio.asp

As well as the following Google searches:

"bill gates" investments
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22bill+gates%22+investments

"casecade investment"
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q="cascade+investment"

Have a great day!

Axe

---

Clarification of Answer by axe-ga on 13 May 2002 06:20 PDT

My apologies, the last search term should read:

"cascade investment" 
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22cascade+investments%22