No. of Recommendations: 7
Big company, all kinds of things. And with 60% of the stock outstanding, I go in and tell Mark Millard, this fellow that is 30 feet away from me or so, and I say in the morning to him, you know, 'Buy 20% and take blocks, or whatever it may be.'
And in two weeks, he buys 14% out of 60%. That's not investment. (Laughter)
I mean, you're not buying from ' I find it just incredible."
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It appears as if Buffett's appetite for OXY below $60 is still quite strong.
Yes - another day, same buyer, as the Yahoo commenter says. It's a story that is playing out in front of our eyes. As of today, we are at 211.7m shares, out of 898.1m shares outstanding, so 23.6%, with warrants to buy another 83.9m, and with Occidental adding oil to the fire by repurchasing shares. Assuming the warrants get exercised (they are set at just under $60), that would give Berkshire about 295.6/(898.1+83.86), i.e. just a hair over 30% now.
I think what Buffett is amazed about is the fact that, out of about 540m publicly traded shares, you can buy 20% of the volume of shares traded on public exchanges and accumulate 14% of the company in 2 weeks. That basically means that 70% of the company's shares not held by index funds get traded every two weeks, or in other words, the share equivalent of the whole company gets bought and sold every 3 weeks. It is amazing, when you think about it, and I guess it is all the more amazing for someone like Buffett who wants to buy a big chunk (or all) of the company and hold it for a long time, to see the volume of shares traded every day, basically like poker chips and not like an owner's investment in an ownership stake of joint venture.
My guess: we go slowly right up to 50% on the public markets with no premium needing to be paid, then exchange the warrants to get to 59.4%, and then buy the rest in short order, at a 15-20% premium, meaning Berkshire ends up only paying about 7-8% premium overall. If going over 50% is not allowed under the current 50% limit (I think this is probably the case), he might also ask for a cashless distribution - for instance, Buffett could take the position to 48% of so, and then, if the shares are at $80, he could trade in the warrants for 1/4 the number of shares (about 21 million shares) without paying any cash, and get to a 50% position that way. Does anyone know whether a cashless distribution has been ruled out, in the warrant documentation?
Buffett may be in no hurry because (a) the warrants give him the ownership upside without the downside in case something goes wrong, and (b) the preferred shares, earning 8% until they are repaid at a 10% premium, are too good to fold up voluntarily with a full takeover offer. But if Occidental's earnings hold up, they may increase the dividend, which would making owning shares more attractive than owning warrants. Or alternatively, Occidental might choose to retire the preferred shares, and that might be the moment where Buffett takes the position up close to 50% stake - and remember, if you can buy 14% in 2 weeks without overly affecting the share price, going from 30% to 48% wouldn't take long...
Regards, DTB
