Melinda French Gates sold US$467 million of Canadian National Railway Co. shares this month, trimming a holding she received in her divorce from Bill Gates and freeing up cash she can potentially use for her own investing and philanthropy.

French Gates sold a total of 3.65 million shares in the Montreal-based company from Dec. 7 to Dec. 16, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing. French Gates, who is worth US$11.6 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, still holds almost 20 million shares, but is now below the 5 per cent stake that requires her to report transactions. 

A representative from French Gates’s Pivotal Ventures didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment about the sale.

In addition to the railroad stock, Gates’s Cascade Investment also transferred stakes in Deere & Co. and AutoNation Inc. to his former wife. Gates, who is worth US$135.3 billion, owns 68.7 million shares of Canadian National.

Pivotal is French Gates’s philanthropic investment and incubation firm that focuses mainly on gender equality. The billionaire founded it in 2015 “as a separate, independent organization” from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which she shares with her ex-husband.