Occidental Board Approves Spin-off Of California Resources Corp

(RTTNews) - Occidental Petroleum Corp. (OXY) said Thursday that its Board of Directors has declared a regular quarterly dividend, authorized the spin-off of its California oil and gas business and increased the company's share repurchase program.

The company's board declared a regular quarterly dividend of $0.72 per share, payable on January 15, 2015, to shareholders of record as of December 10, 2014. Occidental has paid quarterly dividends continuously since 1975 and has increased its dividend each year since 2002. The current annual rate is $2.88 per share.

The company's board also approved the spin-off of its California oil and gas business into an independent and separately traded company, California Resources Corp. The companies will be separated through the distribution of approximately 80.1 percent of the outstanding shares of California Resources to holders of Occidental common stock. Subject to the satisfaction of the conditions to the spin-off, the distribution is expected to occur on November 30, 2014. Occidental shareholders will receive 0.4 shares of California Resources common stock for every one share of Occidental common stock held at the close of business November 17, 2014, the record date for the distribution.

Following the distribution of California Resources common stock, California Resources will be an independent, publicly traded company, and Occidental will retain about 19.9% ownership interest in California Resources for a period of up to 18 months. California Resources has been approved to list its shares of common stock on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "CRC".

In addition, the Occidental board authorized the repurchase of an additional 60 million shares of the company's common stock, leaving the program with 76 million shares, as of September 30, 2014. Share repurchases will continue to be funded from available cash from operations, excess cash on hand and proceeds from asset sales as part of the previously announced strategic review, including a dividend of about $6 billion from California Resources to Occidental.