Cook Couple Passed $6 Billion Fortune to Son to Avoid Tax

Bill and Gayle Cook, the co-founders of medical-device maker Cook Group, passed ownership of the company to their son, Carl, to avoid estate taxes prior to Bill Cook’s death in 2011, according to a biography of the patriarch.

“We had to bypass Gayle to get the stock to Carl now. That took a long time and a lot of planning and work,” Bill Cook is quoted as saying in “The Bill Cook Story,” a 2008 biography written by Bob Hammel for Indiana University Press.