By Davit Kirakosyan
Here is your Pro Recap of the biggest insider trades and institutional investor headlines you may have missed this week: news out of Berkshire Hathaway and Occidental, and Elliott and NRG Energy, and top brass buys at Luminar and Skillz.
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Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway ramps up ownership in Occidental
Occidental Petroleum (NYSE:OXY) announced that Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRKa) (NYSE:BRKb) increased its ownership in the oil company, as InvestingPro reported in real time.
The investment firm now holds approximately 24.4% of the stake, acquiring 3.46 million Occidental shares at a cost of approximately $201M this week. With a total of 217.3M (NYSE:MMM) shares, Berkshire's Occidental holdings are valued at around $12.7 billion.
At the recent annual shareholder meeting, Berkshire’s founder and CEO Warren Buffett said the firm is not going to buy control at Occidental.
Several analysts provided their views regarding this, with Roth MKM noting it also doesn't believe that Buffett is interested in buying the entire company. Wells Fargo argued that the full redemption of the preferred equity could lift Berkshire's ownership of Occidental's common stock above 40%.
Elliott writes to NRG Energy board on underperformance
Elliott Investment Management, with a $1B investment in NRG Energy (NYSE:NRG), has sent a letter to NRG's Board of Directors to outline a clear plan to address the company’s underperformance. Elliott points out that NRG has significantly underperformed due to operational and strategic missteps, including the poorly received acquisition of Vivint, which was deemed the worst deal in the power and utilities sector in the past decade.
Elliott's letter provided a roadmap for NRG to address three key areas: Leadership, Operations, and Strategy and Capital Allocation. By implementing this plan, Elliott believes that NRG can generate more than $5B in shareholder value, potentially pushing the stock price to $55 per share or higher.
Luminar Technologies CEO buys another $9M in stock
Luminar Technologies (NASDAQ:LAZR) CEO Austin Russell purchased 1,475,685 shares, or about $9M worth, at $6.0041-$6.2587.
Russell has been a consistent buyer of the stock over the past year and a half.
Skillz CEO buys 1.5M shares
Skillz (NYSE:SKLZ) CEO Andrew Paradise purchased 1.5M shares, or about $800,000 worth, at $0.52-$0.55.
Paradise owns 10.456 million shares following the latest purchases.
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