Vanguard Natural Resources, LLC (VNR), Chesapeake Energy Corporation (CHK): Key Traits of a Great Retirement Investment

Strong credit profile
Far too many companies and individuals run right up to the edge when it comes to debt. This can work out so well when times are good, but it’s devastating when the tide turns. Vanguard Natural Resources, LLC (NASDAQ:VNR) knows its limits and is committed to maintaining a strong enough balance sheet to ensure that it endures when tough times arise. Invest only in the companies with a balance sheet built to last.

Management team with extensive experience
The most often overlooked area by investors when picking a stock is the management team. That’s a shame because the right management team will see things that others missed. Take a look at what the CEO and co-founder of Vanguard peer BreitBurn Energy Partners L.P. (NASDAQ:BBEP) had to say about why he and his partner started the company:

[We] had a theory, a thesis, that technology was going to allow us to increase recoveries of oil and gas and we thought that, it would work very well in the United States and that the exodus from United States by all the major oil companies in the late 80’s was a mistake. We felt that new technologies would allow us to continue to grow production here in the United States and so we built the business on the back of that. We acquired interest in large oil and gas fields, embracing technology to increase the reserves, the production, the cash flow and therefore the value.

This same spirit is alive and well at Vanguard Natural Resources, LLC (NASDAQ:VNR). The company’s management team knows that one of the keys to its future is to be a capital provider to the oil and gas companies driving the shale revolution. However, it pursues this by remaining disciplined in what it acquires, striving to pay a fair price for great assets, while not being overly aggressive. That has enabled the company to deliver 45% growth in its distribution to investors since going public in 2008. Invest in companies with management teams that offer more than just promises.

The article 5 Key Traits of a Great Retirement Investment originally appeared on Fool.com is written by Matt DiLallo.

Fool contributor Matt DiLallo has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends BreitBurn Energy Partners L.P. (NASDAQ:BBEP). The Motley Fool has the following options: long January 2014 $30 calls on Chesapeake Energy. 

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