The Cheniere Energy (ticker: LNG) board of directors has appointed Jack Fusco as the company’s new CEO.
Fusco came to Cheniere from Houston-based Calpine Corporation (ticker: CPN), whose website describes it as America’s largest generator of electricity from natural gas and geothermal resources–84 power plants in operation or under construction (only 3 aren’t natgas), 27,000 megawatts of generation capacity, customers in 21 states and Canada, 2,300 employees.
Fusco was CEO and board member at Calpine from August 2008 to May 2014 and served as Calpine’s Executive Chairman from May 2014 through May 11, 2016.
In its press release, Cheniere said Fusco was recruited by Calpine’s key shareholders in 2008, “just as that company was emerging from bankruptcy.” The release said Fusco managed commodity trading and balance sheet risks associated with being a merchant power producer. Fusco will continue as a director on the board of Calpine.
Fusco’s 30-year career includes 13 years at Pacific Gas & Electric, as a commodity trader and marketer of wholesale electricity at Goldman Sachs, founder of Orion Power Holdings, an independent power producer, CEO of Texas Genco LLC, where he “managed the transition from a subsidiary of a regulated utility to a strong and profitable independent company, generating a more than 5-fold return for shareholders upon its merger with NRG in 2006,” according to the press release.
Cheniere said it has granted one-time employee inducement awards of 236,381 restricted shares to Fusco as of May 12, 2016. Under his employment agreement with the company, Fusco has agreed to purchase $10,000,000 worth of Cheniere’s common shares by no later than December 31, 2016.
Bloomberg columnist Liam Denning had a take on why Cheniere hired Fusco: “Cheniere needs someone who will focus on sweating the existing assets to generate cash flow to pay down debt and, eventually, raise shareholder distributions (Icahn is still there). The stock price should follow.
“This is why Fusco has been brought in, just as he was at Calpine after it emerged from bankruptcy in 2008. Besides his record at Calpine, he has experience in commodity trading. Most importantly, he has long experience in the utility business, where an almost mind-numbing focus on asset operations and reliability is the holy grail.”
Charif Souki, founder and former chairman and CEO of Cheniere Energy, applauded the selection of Jack Fusco as the company’s new CEO in a video report on Bloomberg.
