Anadarko sets August shareholder vote on Oxy takeover

Al Walker, president and chief executive officer of Anadarko Petroleum Corp., speaks during the 2017 CERAWeek by IHS Markit conference in Houston, Texas, U.S., on Wednesday, March 8, 2017. Photographer: Aaron M. Sprecher/Bloomberg

Shareholders of Anadarko Petroleum will get to vote Aug. 8 on whether to approve the pending $38 billion acquisition of The Woodlands oil and gas producer by Occidental Petroleum, the company announced late Thursday.

The Anadarko vote on the biggest energy deal in years isn’t expected to attract much resistance because a bidding war between Houston-based Oxy and Chevron sweetened the deal for Anadarko’s investors.

There’s much more opposition from Oxy investors, but they won’t have a say-so in a vote because Oxy included enough cash in the deal to avoid a shareholder vote of its own.

Oxy made a deal with Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway firm to secure a $10 billion investment to help finance the deal and nullify any need for a shareholder vote on the Oxy side.

Oxy Chief Executive Vicki Hollub has said she didn’t want avoid a shareholder vote, but she knew Anadarko was more likely to accept the Oxy bid over Chevron if there was no risk of a vote potentially canceling the deal.

Since then, famed activist investor and Oxy shareholder Carl Icahn has a launched a proxy war against Oxy, aiming to replace nearly half of the Oxy board.