Armand Hammer, chairman and chief executive officer of Occidental Petroleum Corp. for 33 years, died Dec. 10 in Los Angeles at 92.
Ray R. Irani, president and chief operating officer, was elected by Oxy's board to succeed Hammer as chairman and CEO pursuant to a resolution adopted in February.
A native of New York City, Hammer received a medical degree from Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1921. He never practiced medicine, however, instead heading his father's pharmaceutical business while still in medical school.
Following the Russian revolution, Hammer became the first western capitalist invited by Communist party leader V.I. Lenin to do business in the new Soviet Union. When Josef Stalin rose to power, Hammer returned to the West in 1931. In subsequent years, he was to renew Soviet ties, getting Oxy involved in fertilizer and petrochemical joint ventures that helped pave the way for the current flurry of such ventures there.
During 1931-56, he worked as a merchant banker in Paris, art dealer in New York City, cattle breeder in New Jersey, whiskey distiller in Kentucky, and as the head of the Mutual Broadcasting System.
In 1956, Hammer invested $100,000 in the then tiny, financially strapped Occidental, with the investment funding two successful oil wells. He became chairman and chief executive officer in 1957.
Hammer presided over Oxy's biggest growth period, following a series of giant oil field discoveries on the company's concessions in Libya. Subsequent successes included a major position in U.K. North Sea oil production.
He oversaw Oxy's acquisition of Cities Service Co. for $4 billion in 1982, at the time one of the biggest corporate takeovers ever.
Oxy is the seventh largest oil company and 16th largest industrial company in the U.S., with more than 53,000 employees.
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