切薩匹克能源公司

上榜年份：2005

排名：第46

公司首席執行官奧貝利?麥克科蘭登對業績增長的看法一貫保守，這種戰略一時是奏效的。2005年，公司在《財富》“增長最快公司榜單”上名列第46位。

麥克科蘭登的戰略是，購買大片油氣田，用公司的利潤來投資開發以獲得更大的增長。不幸的是，麥克科蘭登將公司的未來過度押寶在天然氣上，而這種能源開采起來代價高昂，在美國市場卻只能低價銷售。這種做法使切薩匹克能源公司開始逐漸債臺高筑。今年4月，有消息爆出稱麥克科蘭登的個人資產開始與公司業務發生關聯。8月，公司因可能與競爭者串通壓低密歇根州的油氣價格而受到美國監管機構調查。

因此，切薩匹克能源公司雖然還不至于破產，但其增長戰略卻建立在搖搖欲墜的基礎之上。

Chesapeake Energy

List year: 2005

Rank: 46

Chesapeake Energy CEO Aubrey McClendon had tunnel vision on growth, and for a while, the strategy paid off. Chesapeake was #46 on Fortune's Fastest-Growing list in 2005.

McClendon's strategy was to buy massive tracts of oil and gas land and reinvest the company's profits so it could grow more. Unfortunately, McClendon banked the future hard on natural gas, which is expensive to drill yet still cheap to sell in America. This move caused Chesapeake to amass an unstable amount of debt. In April, news broke that McClendon's personal money was getting tied up in company business. The company was under investigation by U.S. regulators in August for possible collusion with a competitor to lower the price of oil and gas land in Michigan.

So Chesapeake isn't going under, but its growth strategy was built on shaky ground.