Citadel, the hedge fund firm founded by billionaire investor Kenneth Griffin, significantly increased its stake in two dividend-paying energy stocks during the third quarter of the year, according to a report by Investing.com.
The $50 billion hedge fund firm reportedly purchased over 2.4 million shares of Phillips 66 during the third quarter, increasing the fund’s stake by 195%. Citadel also owns roughly 10,377 in call options contracts and 24,501 put options contracts in the diversified energy manufacturing and logistics company, which has been in business for more than 140 years. During the third quarter, Phillips 66, which is offering a dividend yield of 3.46% or $3.88 per share annually ,funded $466 million of dividends and $694 million of share repurchases, returning $1.2 billion to shareholders.
Citadel also increased its stake in Chevron Corporation in Q3 by 289% to over 1.7 million shares with roughly 41,764 call options contracts and 33,855 put options contracts. Chevron the second-largest oil company in the United States with profusion operations in North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia, is offering a dividend yield of 3.05% or $5.68 per share annually, using quarterly payments.
In March of this year, Bloomberg reported that that Chevron, which has increases its dividends for 35 consecutive years, had doubled its stock buyback plan to approximately $10 billion.
