Even after Wilder left TXU, he had a plan: He laid out a detailed bucket list in a farewell letter to employees cited by the Dallas Morning News. It included reading the bible cover-to-cover, learning to ballroom dance and renting a lake cabin to teach his younger son to water ski.

His reputation as a leader who stuck to the plan has earned him both admirers and critics over the years.

In 2006, his plan to build 11 coal-fired power plants across Texas drew intense opposition from environmentalists and local leaders, including the mayors of Houston and Dallas. Wilder not only refused to negotiate, he declined to even meet with critics, including then Dallas mayor Laura Miller, whose office overlooked Wilder’s, said Jim Marston, founding director of the Environmental Defense Fund’s Texas office.

Unraveled Merger

Miller described Wilder as the type of man who “just sits in a tower and thinks of ways to make money.” The two sides eventually reached a middle ground, with TXU settled on building just three plants as part of negotiations over its takeover.

In 2001, Wilder’s aggressiveness landed him in the center of open warfare between Florida-based FPL Group Inc. and the New Orleans utility owner that it was proposing to buy. The head of FPL wanted then-Entergy Corp. Chief Financial Officer Wilder fired, according to Entergy’s CEO, after he pushed a plan to build more power plants in wholesale markets. The $16 billion takeover eventually unraveled.

Since joining Exco last year, Wilder has been quick to deploy strategies to slash the explorer’s costs. Its workforce is down almost 60 percent from the fourth quarter of 2014, and its 2016 capital plan has shrunk to $85 million, from $277 million a year ago. Exco’s shares have risen about 70 percent since he became executive chairman.

Next Step

Since the start of the year, the company’s 8.5 percent, senior unsecured bonds maturing in April 2022 have climbed 17.25 cents to most recently trade at 37.25 cents on the dollar on Aug 15, according to Trace, the bond-price reporting system of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.

In meeting the midnight deadline on its senior notes Tuesday, Exco may be readying for another step in Wilder’s plan. “Keep your eye out for a secured bond offering," said Spencer Cutter, an analyst with Bloomberg Intelligence.