This Top Warren Buffett Stock Plans to Become More Shareholder Friendly in 2023
Occidental Petroleum (NYSE: OXY) is one of the top stock holdings of Warren Buffett's company Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK.A)(NYSE: BRK.B). The conglomerate held over 194 million shares worth more than $14 billion. That's 21.4% of the oil company's outstanding shares and 4.2% of Berkshire's portfolio, making it Buffett's 6th largest holding.
One of the oil company's primary focuses in recent years has been shoring up its balance sheet. It spent $55 billion to wrestle Anadarko Petroleum away from rival Chevron in 2019. That debt-laden deal put tremendous pressure on the company's finances when crude prices plunged in 2020. However, this year, Occidental has paid off a substantial amount of debt thanks to higher oil prices. That puts it in the position to be much more friendly to shareholders like Buffett in 2023.
Occidental Petroleum has prioritized using its free cash flow to reduce debt this year. Thanks to higher oil prices, the company "achieved our goal of reducing the face value of our debt to the high teens," stated CEO Vicki Hollub on the third-quarter conference call. She noted that the company "repaid approximately $1.5 billion of debt in the third quarter." That brought its year-to-date debt reduction to $9.6 billion. That's a 34% reduction in its total debt outstanding this year, pushing its total debt remaining to $19 billion.
Source Fool.com
