A big focus for us in 2023 is repurchasing our common and potentially the preferred

A quick note on why she says "and potentially the preferred" since that is obviously Berkshire's preferred shares she is talking about and a lot of people seem to think she has the option of paying off Berkshire if she wants to and saving that $800 million bucks annually.

The Berkshire preferred shares can only be redeemed under certain circumstances before 2029 (in 2029 it can be redeemed at 105% of face value). Before 2029, OXY has to partially redeem some of Berkshire's preferred shares after the capital return to common shareholders (dividends plus common share repurchases) for the trailing twelve months exceeds $4.00 / common share. After $4.00 / common share of capital return to the common shareholders is hit, the capital return is split 50-50 with (mandatory) preferred share redemption at 110% of face value.

Here is an excerpt from a post I made back in November so it hasn't been adjusted for any more-recent OXY common share count since then (and this was a hypothetical for 2023):

The first $3.6 Billion of capital return can go entirely to common shareholders. Everything above that gets split 50-50 with the pref. redemption (redeemed at a 10% premium to face). If you think they will return $10 Billion total to shareholders next year, they could redeem something like $2.9 Billion worth of the BRK preferred using $3.2 Billion of cash.

Berkshire Hathaway FAQ

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