Seventy Seven Energy Inc. filed for a prepackaged chapter 11 to carry out a plan to convert $1.1 billion of its debt into equity in a reorganized company, Reuters reported yesterday. Several months after its spinoff with Chesapeake Energy Corp. in 2014, about 5,200 participants in Seventy Seven's retirement plan had $54.5 million, or about one-third of their investments, in Chesapeake shares. Since the end of 2014, Chesapeake shares have dropped 76 percent. A slide in oil prices has wiped out several billion dollars of retirement wealth in the energy sector in the past year. Meanwhile, Seventy Seven said that its creditors have already voted overwhelmingly in favor its plan. The bankruptcy comes as two years of depressed energy prices have forced scores of oil-and-gas producers into bankruptcy. The company's plan would cancel its existing stock, which was up slightly.
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