Oil Bust No Problem: It’s Good to Be an Energy CEO

wolfstreet.com / by Irina Slav • Apr 8, 2017

The oil price rout that sent several hundred U.S. oil and gas companies under seems to be largely over, and in a somewhat surprising turn of events, some chief executives of companies that filed for bankruptcy protection in the last two years are doing better than they did when oil traded at over $100 a barrel.

A Wall Street Journal analysis cites the CEO of Ultra Petroleum, for example, who received a portion of 7.5 percent of new shares, to be issued after the company emerges from bankruptcy protection. In absolute terms, this translates into about $35 million – a tenfold jump on Michael Watford’s annual salary in the pre-crisis years.

Another chief executive, Seventy Seven Energy’s Jerry Winchester, got a stock package of 440,000 shares that were worth $6.6 million when the company emerged from bankruptcy last August, which have now swelled to $16 million, thanks to the $1.76-billion acquisition of Seventy Seven by Patterson-UTI Energy.

READ MORE

The post Oil Bust No Problem: It’s Good to Be an Energy CEO appeared first on Silver For The People.