Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?
by Steve SmithIf you don’t own any Chesapeake Energy, rest assured — neither does their CEO. The company said today that Aubrey McClendon, involuntarily sold “substantially all” of his common shares of the company’s stock over the past three days to meet margin loan calls. That’s 33.5 million shares, or 5.8 percent of the company’s common stock, according to a Sept. 30 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
If that’s not enough Chesapeake schadenfreude, there’s this article in the Wall Street Journal wherein: “In recent weeks, a series of companies have announced billions of dollars worth of cuts to their capital budgets. Chesapeake itself led the way, announcing Sept. 22 that it would cut its capital budget by $3.2 billion, or 17%, through 2010. The company also said it planned to sell $1.75 billion worth of assets on top of the nearly $7 billion of assets the company has already sold this year. Mr. McClendon said the company is slowing its acquisition of new land and plans to cut about a quarter of its 4,000 land men, private contractors hired to lease land on behalf of the company.”
Tags: Aubrey McClendon, Barnett Shale, Chesapeake Energy
One Comment, Comments or Pings
dan
Steve-O, like my Dad always said, if it sounds too good to be true, it is. The swagger has definitely gone out the window today. A company could not keep on spending as the Big “C” was spending. The gold rush has ended to a degree. Sound economics and some common sense will hopefully return. I do not wish that anyone would lose their jobs, but things had gotten way out of hand. Much of Chesapeakes wounds have been self inflicted. What goes up can go down.
Oct 10th, 2008
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