EnergySolutions Chairman and CEO Creamer steps down; Christensen to become new CEO

EnergySolutions Chairman and CEO Creamer resigns

SALT LAKE CITY — EnergySolutions Inc. said Friday that Chairman and CEO Steve Creamer has resigned and will be succeeded as CEO by the nuclear services company’s president, Val John Christensen.

The company held a conference call Friday to provide assurances that Creamer’s apparently abrupt departure does not reflect any financial problems at the Salt Lake City-based company.

EnergySolutions’ stock tumbled Friday, closing down $1.44, or 18.5 percent, to $6.35. The shares have traded between $5.22 and $10.80 over the past year.

“What we want you to know is that this change has nothing to do with any corporate malfeasance, with any fraud, with any issues involving customers or contracts,” Christensen said. “There was no dispute or conflict between Steve Creamer and the board. There are no accounting issues.”

Creamer’s resignation was accepted at a regularly scheduled board meeting Thursday in Tennessee and Christensen was elected CEO, Christensen said. Creamer had been CEO and a member of the board of directors since 2005. He became chairman of the board in 2007.

Christensen came to the company in 2006 as general counsel and has served as EnergySolutions’ president since December 2008. He will also become a board member.

Christensen said he was made president as part of a long-term succession plan for the company and that Creamer had identified Christensen as the most likely candidate to succeed him as CEO.

“(Creamer’s departure) was going to happen this year, sometime as I said in the spring or summer,” Christensen said. “It was more of an abrupt acceleration of that succession plan than we contemplated.”

Christensen would not discuss the reasons for Creamer’s departure Friday. He said Creamer will not have an official role in the company but has agreed to make himself available as Christensen adjusts to his new role.

“The company is fundamentally strong,” Christensen said. “Had there been any reason related to the financial condition of the company we would have disclosed that.”

EnergySolutions tapped independent director Steven Rogel to become its new chairman. Rogel is the former CEO and chairman of Weyerhaeuser Co.

EnergySolutions is scheduled to release its 2009 fourth quarter earnings on Thursday.