Chesapeake Energy 2010 Annual Report Download - page 6

happen to manage some of the world’s largest pools of capital and have
a very long-term investment horizon. Their support is an important
validation of our strategy.
Short-Term Pain for Long-Term Gain
Despite this all-star lineup of global partners and investors, some other
investors have not yet fully recognized the benefits of our industry
leadership in acquiring unconventional natural gas and liquids assets.
Whether it was our leveraged balance sheet during recent tough reces-
sionary times, our heavy focus on natural gas during a time of persistent
market pessimism about natural gas prices or our large capital invest-
ments in undeveloped liquids-rich leasehold undertaken to enable
Chesapeake to remain an industry leader in the years ahead, it is clear
that we were less popular in the stock market in 2010 than we were in
2009, when our stock price increased by 60%.
We anticipated that some market unpopularity in 2010 would
likely be the price we would pay as we positioned Chesapeake to be
the leader not only in unconventional U.S. natural gas, but also in
unconventional U.S. liquids. However, now that we have largely com-
pleted the investments needed to accomplish this transition to a port-
folio balanced with liquids, the rebound in our stock price could be sharp
as investors begin to focus more clearly on Chesapeake’s three-way
transition from an asset gatherer to an asset harvester, from less natural
gas exposure to more liquids exposure and from a leveraged balance
sheet to one worthy of an investment grade rating.
Accordingly, in early January 2011, we announced our “25/25 Plan,”
a two-year plan designed to reduce our long-term debt by 25% while
still growing the company’s production by 25%. We designed this plan
to articulate very clearly the benefits of becoming an asset harvester
Strong Partners
Over the past few years, in addition to gathering the industry’s best
assets, Chesapeake has also built the industry’s finest collection of global
energy partners and energy stock investors. We have now entered into
transactions with PXP, BP, Statoil, Total, CNOOC and BHP Billiton. Collec-
tively, we have sold these companies certain assets for total consider-
ation of $20.5 billion in the form of cash and drilling and completion
carries for which our net cost was only $6.1 billion resulting in overall
value creation of $14.4 billion. While these transactions have been very
rewarding to our buyers, they have been truly outstanding for Chesapeake,
providing us an attractive source of capital, a reduction of risk, a quick
recovery of our leasehold investment in new plays and a much greater
ability to capture a large resource base with decades of highly profitable
drilling opportunities.
In addition, we are the only U.S. E&P company that has attracted
to its stock ownership roster some of the world’s leading government-
sponsored investors: Temasek Holdings (Singapore), China Investment
Corporation, Korea Investment Corporation and Abu Dhabi Investment
Authority. Along with our largest shareholder, Memphis, Tennessee-
based Southeastern Asset Management (12%), these shareholders are
some of the world’s largest and most astute investors, and who also
2010 ANNUAL REPORT | 5
Through a wide variety of transactions,
including several led by Chesapeake,
the global energy industry made it clear
that the assets owned by Chesapeake and
some of its peers are the most attractive
in the world.
<< Aubrey K. McClendon, Co-Founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer