Berkshire buys more Occidental shares, boosts stake to 15.2%
2022.05.05 07:41
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FILE PHOTO: Berkshire Hathaway shareholders walk by a video screen at the company’s annual meeting in Omaha May 4, 2013. REUTERS/Rick Wilking
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(Reuters) – Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRKa) Inc has bought another 5.9 million shares of Occidental Petroleum Corp (NYSE:OXY), boosting its stake in the oil company to about 15.2%.
The purchases were made on Monday and Tuesday and cost about $336 million, Berkshire said in a regulatory filing on Wednesday night.
Following the purchases, Berkshire owned about 142.3 million Occidental shares worth approximately $8.8 billion, plus $10 billion of preferred stock it acquired in 2019 to help finance Occidental’s purchase of Anadarko Petroleum Corp (NYSE:APC).
Berkshire also has warrants to buy an additional $5 billion of Occidental shares at a slight discount to their Wednesday closing price of $61.57.
Occidental’s share price has more than doubled this year, benefiting from Berkshire’s purchases and rising oil prices, which got a further boost after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Berkshire has been on a spending spree in 2022.
It spent $51.1 billion on equities in the first quarter, including by increasing its stake in oil company Chevron Corp (NYSE:CVX) to $25.9 billion.
Berkshire has also this year announced large investments in video game maker Activision Blizzard Inc (NASDAQ:ATVI) and computer and printer maker HP Inc (NYSE:HPQ), and a planned $11.6 billion purchase of insurance company Alleghany (NYSE:Y) Corp.
