Warren Buffet’s conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway continues to double down on oil giant Occidental Petroleum. In a recent filing, Berkshire disclosed that it now owns a 29% stake in Occidental Petroleum while at the same time selling some of its shares in China’s vehicle maker BYD.
Berkshire acquired an additional 2.95 million shares of Occidental Petroleum in three separate transactions, paying $176 million. The conglomerate now owns around 255 million shares valued at approximately $15.4 billion.
Additionally, Berkshire intends to keep on accumulating Occidental Petroleum stock in the future. It has warrants to acquire 83.5 million shares at the price of $59.62 per share. The oil giant’s shares closed at $60.20 on Monday and are 0.25% up year to date.
Meanwhile, Berkshire has trimmed its holdings of BYD’s stock. It sold 1.3 million BYD shares listed on the Hong Kong Exchange and pocketed $39.8 million, lowering its stake in the company from 7.02% to 6.90%.
Berkshire originally invested in BYD in 2008, acquiring 225 million shares equaling 10%. Since then, BYD has become one of the largest automakers in the world and recently briefly surpassed Tesla as the biggest seller of electric vehicles. This caused BYD’s shares to skyrocket and prompted Berkshire to occasionally sell some of its holdings.