On April 29, 2016, when Vicki Hollub became CEO, Occidental Petroleum was valued at $54.43 billion, with oil at $45.92 per barrel. As of May 2025, oil has risen to $60 per barrel, yet Oxy’s market cap has dropped to $40.42 billion. Stripping out Buffett’s $11.3 billion stake (28%), the rest of the company is effectively valued at just $29.1 billion. That’s a true loss of $25.3 billion in shareholder value—despite oil prices going up.
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I thought when we hired a VP of AI and paid him 7 figures, we would start to kickass and make billions of dollars.
Typical useless waste as usual. All I see is a bunch of external fluff and all talk, no action.
Not exactly sure where you're coming from, but you just might (unintentionally) be making @15v+1jvyxt573 's point.
You are absolutely correct that employees (and other shareholders) could have bailed and dumped the stock.
The VH statements along the way – requisite “forward looking” weasel words aside – make Pinocchio and Bill Clinton look like paragons of honesty.
But, the fact is the stock has tanked under VH's watch.
Like it or not, that is indisputable.
So, it's really not about one's investment decisions - that appears to be your area of internet expertise.
Rather, it's about the (in)competence of the CEO. And her failure to simply maintain an even keel. "Genius."
Shanking the employee’s 401K’s? It’s your fault if you kept your match in the Oxy Stock Fund. You could have sold it at any time and move it to any other investment in the 401K offering. Dummy.
@kt+1jvyxt573's post says it all.
VH was handed the keys to a well running machine.
All she had to do was keep it between the lines - eyes on the road and hands upon the wheel - and she would have been viewed as a competent, respected and successful CEO.
Instead she needlessly drove it into the ditch in an attempt to "prove" her worthiness as the first woman to lead a major oil company and run with "big boys."
The APC deal is a testament to incompetence.
To all the VH apologists: Does a "nice person” shaft the shareholders and tank the employees 401Ks in order to gratify her massive ego ?
You should value the company by using “enterprise value”.
Actually Oxy was quite well known and had started to be very well respected until SC took over.
Oxy has never been on anyone's radar.... Haven't done anything material this century. Will only be a footnote in history for getting WB to open his wallet and allowing VH to out bid / over pay for APC. Time will right this ship but unfortunately the key players will walk away with millions.
@kt: mind blowing comparison. how she is still CEO is beyond me.
Exactly!... @kt. It's as simple as that.
@en The stock price for the same time period per below.
2016 vs 2025
EOG 82.62 - 110.18
COP 47.79 - 85.19
Hess 59.62 - 131.36
Oxy - 73.23 - 41.30
I've never known anyone or anything have ANY value at Oxy at all.
None of them as competent as RI.
@e8+1jvyxt573
Buffett’s ownership should be included but higher EV is meaningless. Any numbnut can grow by borrowing money but it’s eroding the owners’ returns. Who cares if a company had a $500bn EV if it’s 99% debt and 1% equity.
Simple story is Oxy has significantly lagged other O&G companies in shareholder returns under Vicki’s tenure. If this were a normal company and/or she wasn’t female she would be pushed out long ago.
Vicki is a nice person and nicer than Chazen or Al Walker but we don’t choose CEOs on their niceties.
What a useless conversation... Overpaid for APC and Crownrock, critically leveraged and cannot find hydrocarbons (unless they buy them). Deflecting investors with the DAC initiative. The stock price and value erosion over the last twelve months is all you need to see...
Oxy is nature's way of saying run away as fast as you can.....
"Stripping out Buffett's" share makes no sense. Given our debt situation, you should also look at total enterprise value rather than market cap.
It is Warren’s stock actually part of the traditional market cap calculation?