Time for Chesapeake Energy’s Parade of Debt!

by Steve Smith

The Star-Telegram may exhort us to ring in the most bleak Christmas shopping season in decades with tonight’s Chesapeake Energy Parade of Lights, but don’t be fooled by the fact that Chesapeake spends big money to slap its name on just about everything in Fort Worth, Aubrey McClendon’s company still has big-time money problems.

It’s an age-old PR tactic — when your company has bad news to announce, do it the afternoon before a holiday because people’s minds are elsewhere. That’s what happened late Wednesday when Chesapeake filed documents with the SEC saying it intends to “raise up to $1.8 billion through common stock sales in an effort to fund its drilling and exploration activities and mitigate the impact of lower natural gas prices on cash flow.”

This comes in the wake of several high-dollar transactions meant to shore up the cash-poor company. In September, BP said it planned to buy a 25 percent stake in Chesapeake’s Fayetteville Shale assets in Arkansas for $1.9 billion. A month earlier, BP said it had bought similar Chesapeake assets in Oklahoma for $1.7 billion. Then, earlier this month, Chesapeake sold even more natural gas assets to Norwegian energy company StatoilHydro for $3.38 billion.

According to the SEC filings, Chesapeake said it’s negotiating with several “significant” leaseholders to acquire leaseholds at reduced prices. CHK said some leaseholders may agree to accept common stock for all or part of the deal. Wow.

That’s the great thing about SEC filings — they force a company that’s normally full of malarkey like Chesapeake to actually tell the truth about a few things. My favorite section in any SEC filing is always “Risk Factors.” I quote at length from Wednesday’s filings below:

Our level of indebtedness may limit our financial flexibility.

As of September 30, 2008, we had long-term indebtedness of approximately $14.3 billion, with $3.474 billion of outstanding borrowings drawn under our revolving bank credit facility. Our net indebtedness represented 43% of our total book capitalization at September 30, 2008. As of November 25, 2008, we had approximately $13.8 billion of long-term indebtedness outstanding, with $3.474 billion outstanding under our revolving bank credit facility and $209 million outstanding under Chesapeake Midstream Operating’s midstream revolving bank credit facility. See “Capitalization.”

Our level of indebtedness and preferred stock affects our operations in several ways, including the following:

  • a portion of our cash flows from operating activities must be used to service our indebtedness and pay dividends on our preferred stock and is not available for other purposes;
  • we may be at a competitive disadvantage as compared to similar companies that have less debt;
  • the covenants contained in the agreements governing our outstanding indebtedness and future indebtedness may limit our ability to borrow additional funds, pay dividends and make certain investments and may also affect our flexibility in planning for, and reacting to, changes in the economy and in our industry;
  • additional financing in the future for working capital, capital expenditures, acquisitions, general corporate or other purposes may have higher costs and more restrictive covenants; and
  • changes in the credit ratings of our debt may negatively affect the cost, terms, conditions and availability of future financing, and lower ratings will increase the interest rate and fees we pay on our revolving bank credit facility.
  • We may incur additional debt, including secured indebtedness, or issue additional series of preferred stock in order to develop our properties and make future acquisitions. A higher level of indebtedness and/or additional preferred stock increases the risk that we may default on our obligations. Our ability to meet our debt obligations and to reduce our level of indebtedness depends on our future performance. General economic conditions, natural gas and oil prices and financial, business and other factors affect our operations and our future performance. Many of these factors are beyond our control. We may not be able to generate sufficient cash flow to pay the interest on our debt, and future working capital, borrowings or equity financing may not be available to pay or refinance such debt. Factors that will affect our ability to raise cash through an offering of our capital stock or a refinancing of our debt include financial market conditions, the value of our assets, the number of shares of capital stock we have authorized, unissued and unreserved and our performance at the time we need capital.

    Chesapeake Midstream Operating’s midstream revolving bank credit facility contains a covenant restricting Chesapeake Midstream Partners from paying dividends or distributions to Chesapeake.

    In addition, our bank borrowing base is subject to periodic redetermination. A lowering of our borrowing base could require us to repay indebtedness in excess of the borrowing base, or we might be required to provide the lenders with additional collateral.

    The current financial crisis may have impacts on our business and financial condition that we cannot predict.

    The continued credit crisis and related turmoil in the global financial system may have an impact on our business and our financial condition, and we may face challenges if conditions in the financial markets do not improve. Our cash flow from operations, our revolving bank credit facility and cash on hand historically have not been sufficient to fund all of our expenditures, and we have relied on the capital markets and asset monetization transactions to provide us with additional capital. Our ability to access the capital markets has been restricted as a result of this crisis and may continue to be restricted at a time when we would like, or need, to raise capital. The financial crisis may also limit the number of participants in our proposed asset monetization transactions or reduce the values we are able to realize in those transactions, making these transactions uneconomic or harder or impossible to consummate. The economic situation could also adversely affect the collectability of our trade receivables and cause our commodity hedging arrangements to be ineffective if our counterparties are unable to perform their obligations or seek bankruptcy protection. Additionally, the current economic situation could lead to reduced demand for natural gas and oil, or lower prices for natural gas and oil, or both, which could have a negative impact on our revenues.

    Additionally, due to the current financial crisis, decreases in natural gas prices and concerns about an over supply of natural gas in the U.S. market, we and other exploration and production companies significantly curtailed leasehold acquisition efforts during September and October of 2008. As a result, we have entered into negotiations with several significant leaseholders seeking to re-negotiate terms with these leaseholders which we anticipate would involve our acquiring the leasehold in question at reduced prices. Some leaseholders may agree.

    Note to Aubrey: If you are looking for ways to save money, check out your PR staff and budget. There’s lots of room to cut there.

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    One Comment, Comments or Pings

    1. curtis

      “we have entered into negotiations with several significant leaseholders seeking to re-negotiate terms”

      Wow Chesapeake… I know you’re gonna drink my milkshake eventually, but I’m enjoying a deep schadenfreude belly laugh right now.

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