Kirk Kerkorian has sold part of his 6.5 per cent stake in Ford, the US carmaker, for a third less than he acquired the shares just six months ago.

The billionaire investor has indicated that he intends to reduce his overall holding in the short term in a move which triggered a 4 per cent share price plunge for Ford stock in morning trading in New York.

Mr Kerkorian's decision to sell his Ford stake comes after it emerged that General Motors and Chrysler, Ford's main rivals, are in talks about a possible merger. When Mr Kerkorian acquired his holding in April for around $7 each, he had said that he would try and help the carmaker recover by injecting additional capital.

However, since buying 140.8 million shares for around $1 billion, Ford stock has sunk by about 60 per cent.

Yesterday, he reduced his holding from 6.5 per cent to 6.1per cent, representing around 7.3 million shares. According to a regulatory filing, Mr Kerkorian sold the shares for around $2.43, crystallizing an immediate $17 million loss.

While Ford had been struggling to cope with declining sales due to the high gasoline price, the banking crisis which erupted over the last two months, has affected the car maker very badly.

As banks tightened their lending practices, they withdrew from types of unsecured lending, such as auto loans.

The scarcity of car financing in the US is estimated to cost the three main car groups in America 6 million of new car sales this year. Ford's US sales are already down 17 per cent in the first nine months of the year, a steeper decline than the industry's 13 per cent drop.

It is understood that Ford, General Motors and Chrysler are so desperate they have approached the US Treasury for a type of financial aid package, similar to the rescue scheme devised to bail-out Wall Street banks. Henry Paulson, the US Treasury Secretary, is understood to have refused the car companies state aid.

Mr Kerkorian's investment vehicle Tracinda Corporation, which held the shares, said today it was reallocating its resources to focus on gaming, hospitality, oil and gas industries where it sees value in light of current economic and market conditions.

It also said that it had appointed an investment bank to handle the sale of its remaining 133 million Ford shares. The Ford family holds a 3 percent stake in the group, but controls 40 percent of the voting power because of a separate class of shares established when the company went public in 1956.

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