Occidental Petroleum CEO Vicki Hollub Buys Stock After Warren Buffett Did

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Occidental Petroleum

has had quite a year, and CEO Vicki Hollub just bought shares of the energy explorer on the open market.

Occidental (ticker: OXY) stock has doubled so far in 2022, buoyed by strong energy prices this year, and a high-profile investment earlier this month by
Warren Buffett’s

Berkshire Hathaway (

BRK.B). Berkshire now owns about 15% of Occidental’s shares outstanding.

By comparison, the

S&P 500 index
is down 3.4% so far this year.

Hollub paid $798,100 on March 28 for 14,191 Occidental shares, an average price of $56.24 each, according to a form she filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. She now owns 467,282 Occidental shares, and an additional 23,390 shares through a savings plan.

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Occidental didn’t immediately respond to a request to make Hollub available for comment on her stock purchase. She last purchased Occidental stock on the open market nearly three years ago. She paid $1.8 million on June 10, 2019, for 37,460 Occidental shares, an average price of $48.15 per share.

Barron’s thinks Berkshire Hathaway could potentially combine Occidental with Berkshire Hathaway Energy to create an energy and utility giant. We wrote that “an Occidental deal at $70 billion, or $80 a share, would be right in Buffett’s wheelhouse.”

Inside Scoop is a regular Barron’s feature covering stock transactions by corporate executives and board members—so-called insiders—as well as large shareholders, politicians, and other prominent figures. Due to their insider status, these investors are required to disclose stock trades with the Securities and Exchange Commission or other regulatory groups.

Write to Ed Lin at [email protected] and follow @BarronsEdLin.