Apart from Microsoft, Bill Gates biggest public US investment is in waste.
Currently he owns about USD1.44 billion worth of shares in Republic Services (RSG), the second biggest waste company in the US. In September last year, his private charitable fund (the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Trust) also owned 15,716,367 shares (worth about USD500 million) in the biggest US waste company Waste Management Inc (WM).
RSG operates in 40 US states, controls 400 trucking companies, 213 landfills, 79 recycling facilities and over 240 waste sorting or transfer stations. It employs about 34,000 people.
WM employs about 46,000 people. It has 273 landfills, 104 recycling facilities and 355 transfer stations.
The RSG shares are owned through his private investment company Cascade Investments. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation also owns some RSG shares.
Gates seems to have a very keen interest in RSG. He owns about 15 percent of the waste company. And in July 2008 he pushed off an attempt by WM to take over RSG. Then in October last year Gate's adviser and friend, Michael Larson joined the RSG board. Larson is the Business Manager for Cascade and the Chief Investment Officer for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
The former Microsoft chief still owns over USD18 billion worth of shares in the computing giant.
Apart from Microsoft, his largest investment is in Canadian National Railways (CNI). Cascade owns over USD1.74 billion worth of shares in this rail company, the biggest in Canada and one of the largest in North America.
(01/2010)
http://www.republicservices.com/
http://www.wme.com.au/insidewaste/downloads/Issue31_July.Aug2009_InsideWaste.pdf