December 12, 2012 — Bill Gates has increased his overall stake in  Deere & Company (NYSE:DE) to about 7%, marking an acquisition of three million additional shares of the farm equipment manufacturer.

Cascade Investment LLC, a Kirkland investment company owned and managed by Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT)’s Chairman, Bill Gates, announced Tuesday that the acquisition of additional shares has increased Cascade Investment LLC’s holdings in Deere & Company (NYSE:DE) to 27.5 million, according to a regulatory filing.

Prior to the firm’s filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC),  the Gates-directed investment firm had owned 24.5 million shares, or 6.2%, since July 2011.

According to Cascade Investment LLC, this purchase “is for investment purposes,” but no clear reason has been disclosed by the company for increasing the firm’s stake in the leading farm equipment manufacturer.

Per the Wall Street Journal, more than 580,200 shares of Bill Gate’s investment entity were acquired at an average price of $85.25 per share.

Cascade Investment LLC, of Kirkland, Washington, is Bill Gate’s primary investment entity, one third of whose shares were purchased in the past 2 months.  Cascade Investment LLC, in many ways,  looks like a smaller version of Berkshire Hathaway, only with Bill Gates and his family as the sole shareholder.

It is notable that Cascade Investment LLC, currently owns hundreds of millions of dollars worth of Berkshire Hathaway shares.