The carmaker's stockholders offered Kerkorian 1.02 billion shares following his offer to acquire 20m shares at $8.50 (£4.30) through his Tracinda Corp investment vehicle.

Shareholders may be eager to take the offer as Ford shares were down nearly 4 per cent at $6.10 on the New York Stock Exchange earlier this week. Kerkorian, who was also one of the original bidders to buy previously Ford-owned Land Rover and Jaguar, purchased 100 million Ford shares in April and announced plans to tender the offer, even after Ford issued a profit warning. He was previously the largest individual shareholder in rival carmaker General Motors.