Credit: Brad Gregg For Oklahoma City billionaire Aubrey McClendon, that might mean selling the beach house he’s never lived in. His $10 million home on Lake Michigan hit the market recently. The 7,000-square-foot behemoth of a getaway place in the Singapore Dunes of Michigan comes complete with a 1,300-square-foot separate guest house. The former Chesapeake […]
Aubrey McClendon
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After Aubrey
Aubrey McClendon Credit: Shannon Cornman The nonprofit sector was put on notice by the company in January with a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing that stated Chesapeake planned to significantly curtail its charitable giving. The company did not disclose how much less it would be giving to charitable causes. Chesapeake’s 2011 annual report showed […]
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McClendon’s genius
I’ve had the good fortune to know both men, who, by any measure, are two of the most visionary entrepreneurs responsible for much of Oklahoma City’s renaissance. Chesapeake is America’s second-largest natural gas producer. Early on, McClendon and Ward realized the promise of unlocking huge deposits of natural gas by fracking. In replacing McClendon, Chesapeake […]
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What’s a billion, anyway?
Credit: Brad Gregg The mag noted McClendon had leveraged against his personally held oil and gas interests and has “mounds of debt.” But don’t get out your tiny violin just yet. McClendon will leave Chesapeake April 1 with a severance package worth about $47 million. Although he’s no longer a billionaire (wiping tears away), he […]
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Moneyball
Thunder majority owner Clay Bennett Credit: Shannon Cornman Home games at the Chesapeake Energy Arena routinely sell out. Signs of Thunder mania, from car flags to T-shirts, are everywhere. Lengthy, glowing profiles about the team and its relationship to OKC have appeared everywhere from The New York Times to USA Today. The team’s devoted following […]
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School board bucks
Unofficial results from the Oklahoma County Election Board show that Hardin, a former development officer for the Oklahoma School of Science and Mathematics, received 51 percent of the vote, or 3,376 total votes. An entrepreneur and founder of Friends of Northwest Classen High School Foundation, Hardin had outraised Monson by a nearly 5-to-1 margin in […]
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The shy, retiring type?
Aubrey McClendon Credit: Shannon Cornman Chesapeake did not offer details about why its co-founder was stepping down, but an email and statement from McClendon point toward clashes with the company’s new board of directors. In an email to Chesapeake employees, McClendon said the action was mutually agreed upon by him and the board. “Although this […]
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Tom Tom, clubbed
Credit: Brad Gregg Apparently, that was just a warm-up act. Now, the news agency is examining SandRidge Energy and its CEO, Tom Ward. In a recent story, Reuters showed how some practices at SandRidge didn’t differ much from those at Chesapeake, which Ward had co-founded with McClendon. Reuters reported that Ward received $75 million in […]
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Hot or not
The Wall Street Journal reported recently that McClendon will likely remain in place as CEO after an internal investigation of his financial dealings is completed later this month. McClendon, you might remember, survived a shareholder revolt after revelations that he used his stake in oil and gas wells as collateral for more than $800 million […]
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Sour shareholders
Credit: Brad Gregg TPG-Axon, which holds a 4.5 percent stake in SandRidge, charged in a Nov. 8 letter to SandRidge’s board that the company had engaged in reckless spending and that shareholders had experienced a 76-percent decline in stock price. TPG-Axon requested that the company be sold, Tom Ward replaced as CEO and board members […]