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Berkshire Hathaway
buy 2.1 million shares
Random oil and gas
in recent days, raising its stake in the major energy company to more than 25%, according to a late submission on wednesday.
Berkshire Hathaway (ticker: BRK.A, BRK.B) currently owns 224.1 million shares of Occidental Petroleum (OXY), a position worth about $12.9 billion based on Wednesday’s closing price.
Random shares rose 0.6% during the session to $57.46. Berkshire currently owns a 25.1% stake in Occidental.
Berkshire paid an average of just over $57 a share for its latest purchases. Berkshire CEO Warren Buffett has steadily added to his company’s stake in Occidental this year but said at Berkshire’s annual meeting in May that he does not seek to control the company. Later, Buffett said that he greatly appreciated Random CEO Vicki Hollubwho are pursuing one of the most ambitious and innovative carbon capture strategies in the energy industry. Barron’s recently named Hollub to list of top CEOs in 2023.
The filing also states that Occidental recently repurchased about $160 million of the 8% preferred stock held by Berkshire, paying a 10% premium. Berkshire currently owns about $9.2 billion in preferred stock. Occidental paid off $800 million for that preferred issuance this year. Occidental is eager to pay off the expensive incentive it issued to Berkshire in 2019.
In addition to Occidental’s common and preferred stock, Berkshire owns nearly 84 million rights to buy the energy company’s common stock at just under $60 a share.
Buffett prefers to pay less than $60 a share for Western common stock, and the drop in oil prices has allowed him to accumulate more shares at what he considers an attractive price. Happened to trade around $75 earlier this year when oil prices were higher.
Write to Andrew Barry at [email protected]
