RE:Suttles is out!
Probably good. Suttles not all bad and has pushed the company in direction of efficient operations and continuous improvement. But his timing has been awful and the shares can never recover to where they were before under his watch. Might as well let someone else step in and see where he (in this case) can lead them from here as a new starting point. I also have always liked Brendan McCracken.
Many examples of poor timing by Suttles. Recent sale of Eagleford at low instead of just using it for cash flow for the next few years with oil now at 70s - is one example. Hard to buy something (Eagleford) for 4 billion and sell it for under 1 billion just when cash flow is about to ramp - and then tout that as huge success. Another one is to layer on all these current hedges in 40's as oil about to jump to 70s. There will be a billion in losses this year on the hedges.
Bailing out of Duvernay JV was poorly timed. Buying Newfield Exploration poorly timed. Selling Newfield Arkoma Natural gas assetts poorly timed (for 165 million - what are they worth now). Everything has just seemed out of phase.
That said, after massive collapse and value destruction with shares dropping to $3 in March 2000 AFTEWR reverse 5:1 split - the last 15 months have been on an uptrend that has been very powerful.