Oklahoma City’s Chesapeake Energy Corporation plans to release its 2023 fourth quarter earnings report in the coming days.
The company will release the quarterly and full year operational and financial results after the close of the market on Tuesday, February 20.
A conference call featuring company leaders will be held the next day, Wednesday, February 21 at 8 a.m. Central Time.
The financial information release comes weeks after Chesapeake announced a merger with Houston-based Southwestern Energy. Shareholders have yet to approve the merger. Chesapeake indicated that if the merger is approved, the headquarters of the new firm will remain in Oklahoma City.
The merger announcement followed a strong third quarter for Chesapeake Energy. It generated $506 million in operating cash flow during the quarter and had $713 million cash on hand and an undrawn $2 billion credit facility.
During the third quarter, Chesapeake also repurchased nearly 1.5 million shares of its common stock for approximately $130 million at an average price of $86.16 per share.Through October 27, 2023, Chesapeake repurchased approximately 3.8 million shares of its common stock for approximately $31 pproximately $600 million remaining under its share repurchase program and, in total, has repurchased approximately 16 million shares of its common stock at a cost of approximately $1.4 billion under its current $2 billion authorization.
Chesapeake also saw its company’s credit ratling outlook moved to positive watch S&P Global Ratings during the quarter. Since April 2023, Chesapeake’s issuer default rating has been updated to ‘BB+’ maintaining a positive outlook and ‘Ba1’ with a stable outlook by Fitch Ratings and Moody’s, respectively. The agencies noted increased scale, conservative financial policy, and cash optionality as fundamental to the company’s continued rating improvements.