Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRKa), Inc. (NYSE: BRK-A) (NYSE: BRK-B) has increased its stake in Occidental Petroleum Corp. (NYSE: NYSE:OXY), taking its total ownership in the energy company to 18.7%.
Berkshire bought 12.043 million shares of Occidental on Tuesday and Wednesday, a Form 4 SEC filing on Thursday showed. The value of the purchase was $698 million.
Just last week, Berkshire had picked up 9.9 million shares of Occidental.
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With the latest buy, Berkshire has now amassed 175.4 million shares in the company, valued at about $10.8 billion, making it the biggest shareholder.
Berkshire also has $10 billion worth of Occidental's preferred stock and warrants to buy an additional 83.9 million shares at $59.62 apiece.
If Berkshire increases its stake beyond 20%, it could implement an accounting change that would allow it to record a proportionate share of Occidental's earnings in its financial statement.
Berkshire's accumulation of Occidental shares has given room to speculation that Buffett's company could eventually buy the latter. Occidental shares have added about 113% gains year-to-date, thanks to Buffett's interest in the company and the spike in oil prices amid the geopolitical tensions surrounding the Russia-Ukraine war.
Occidental acquired peer Anadarko Petroleum (NYSE:APC) in August 2019 for $55 billion, including the assumption of the target company's debt. Berkshire's investment in preferred shares had then helped finance the takeover.
Price Action: In premarket trading Friday, Occidental shares were rising 0.46% to $61.75, according to Benzinga Pro data.
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