Berkshire Hathaway Inc (BRK.A)

[bar1080]

"Berkshire Hathaway boosts Occidental Petroleum stake above 20%"

"August 8 (Reuters) - Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRKa) Inc bought more shares of Occidental Petroleum Corp (NYSE:OXY), surpassing the 20% stake where it could record some of the oil company's earnings with its own and potentially add billions of dollars of profit.

In a regulatory filing on Monday night, Berkshire said it paid about $391 million for nearly 6.7 million Occidental shares between Aug. 4 and Aug. 8.

The purchases gave Berkshire 188.4 million Occidental shares, or 20.2% of reported shares outstanding, worth $11.3 billion.

A 20% stake would let Berkshire report its proportionate share of Houston-based Occidental's earnings with operating results, through the so-called equity method of accounting.

Berkshire nonetheless could contend that its accounting for Occidental should remain unchanged because its stake is passive."

"Analysts on average expect Occidental to generate $10.5 billion of profit this year, according to Refinitiv I/B/E/S.

Buffett's company also owns $10 billion of Occidental preferred stock, which helped finance the 2019 purchase of Anadarko Petroleum (NYSE:APC), and has warrants to buy another 83.9 million common shares for $5 billion.

Some analysts have speculated that Omaha, Nebraska-based Berkshire could eventually bid for all of Occidental."

https://www.investing.com/news/stock-market-news/berkshire-hathaway-boosts-occidental-petroleum-stake-above-20-2867289