Carl Icahn, the billionaire financier and institutional investor, has stepped up his battle for control of Occidental Petroleum. Bloomberg reported on November 25 that Icahn, who owns about $1 billion worth of stock in Occidental, was preparing to make a bid for command of the company.
Sources familiar with the matter told the news agency that the activist investor intended to nominate his own slate of directors for Occidental’s board by the November 29 deadline. Icahn is looking to appoint 10 new directors to replace all of the board’s current members, they explained.
The billionaire has been very critical of Occidental’s recent business decisions, especially its use of a $10 billion loan from Warren Buffett to finance the acquisition of Anadarko Petroleum earlier this year. He has argued that Vicki Hollub, Occidental’s CEO, paid far too much for Anadarko and that the deal is likely to hurt the company’s financial position.
Vincent Piazza, a senior analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, said Icahn was likely to attract allies if Occidental’s performance began to suffer. “I think you’ll definitely find a chorus of opposition and activists growing more vocal [in that case],” he commented.