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Hedge Funds Are Tracking Private Jets to Find the Next Megadeal

Where there’s a plane, there’s a data trail.

A private jet takes off from Jackson Hole Airport in Grand Teton National Park, Wyo., on June 13, 2019.

A private jet takes off from Jackson Hole Airport in Grand Teton National Park, Wyo., on June 13, 2019.

Photographer: Daniel Slim/AFP/Getty Images

If you have a meeting with Warren Buffett in Omaha and you want to keep it a secret, consider driving. The airports are being watched.

In April, a stock research firm told clients that a Gulfstream V owned by Houston-based Occidental Petroleum Corp. had been spotted at an Omaha airport. The immediate speculation was that Occidental executives were negotiating with Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. to get financial help in their $38 billion offer for rival Anadarko Petroleum Corp. Two days later, Buffett announced a $10 billion investment in Occidental.