Berkshire Hathaway
bought more
Occidental Petroleum
stock in recent days, purchasing 5.2 million shares and bringing its total ownership to 243.7 million shares, for a 27.7% stake in the big energy company, according to a form 4 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission late Thursday.
Berkshire made the purchases from Tuesday through Thursday and paid an average price of about $60 a share. The purchases totaled about $313 million and brought Berkshire’s stake in Occidental to $14.7 billion.
Berkshire resumed buying Occidental stock last week after a hiatus of more than a month. The fresh purchases followed Occidental’s announcement of a $12 billion deal to purchase CrownRock, a privately held oil-and-gas company on Dec. 11. Berkshire bought more than 10 million shares of Occidental last week.
Berkshire CEO Warren Buffett has been accumulating the Occidental stake since early 2022. This year, he has generally liked to pay $60 or less for the stock. Occidental shares were up 0.5% Thursday to $60.44.
Berkshire needs to report changes in its holdings in Occidental—either buys or sells—within two business days because it is a holder of more than 10% of the energy company’s stock.
Buffett said at Berkshire’s annual meeting in May that his firm doesn’t seek control of Occidental and that he’s happy with the company’s leadership under CEO Vicki Hollub.
Write to Andrew Bary at [email protected]
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