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Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A) (BRK.B) is in talks to buy Occidental Petroleum's (NYSE:OXY) petrochemical business for ~$10 billion, which would make the deal Berkshire's largest since 2022, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.
A deal for the OxyChem petrochem unit, which generated nearly $5 billion in sales in the 12 months ended in June, would be Warren Buffett's second big bet on chemicals, after Berkshire (BRK.A) (BRK.B) acquired specialty chemicals producer Lubrizol for nearly $10 billion including debt in 2011.
The Financial Times reported on Sunday that Occidental (NYSE:OXY) was in talks for a $10 billion deal to sell OxyChem, but did not identify a buyer.
Occidental (OXY) CEO Vicki Hollub traveled to Nebraska in 2019 to visit Buffett, whose company agreed to buy $10 billion of preferred shares in OXY, boosting her effort to outbid Chevron to buy Anadarko Petroleum; the deal saddled the company with debt and attracted criticism, but Buffett doubled down on his bet, eventually buying up ~28% of OXY shares.
Occidental (OXY) has been selling non-core assets to raise cash to pay down debt, repaying $7.5 billion of debt as of August, while Berkshire (BRK.A) (BRK.B) is sitting on a massive cash pile totaling a record $344 billion at the end of June
