Icahn boosts Chesapeake stake
Carl Icahn
Activist investor Carl Icahn has increased his stake in Chesapeake Energy Corp.
Icahn purchased almost 10 million shares of company stock since last week, according to a regulatory filing. That increases his holdings to nearly 60 million shares.
Icahn, who was part of an investor uprising at Chesapeake this year, now controls almost 9 percent of Chespeake’s 665 million shares of outstanding stock, making him the company’s second largest shareholder behind Memphis-based Southeastern Asset Management.
Icahn and his companies have spent about $951 million, including commissions, to amass its stake in Chesapeake, the filing states. He spent nearly $166 million in the past week to add 9.6 million shares at an average price of $17.42 each.
Chesapeake shares rose in early trading Tuesday after the U.S. Securities and Exchange filing on Icahn’s added stake. It was trading at $17.56 a share, up 9 cents, about noon Tuesday.
Environmental group wants to close coal plants
Great Scott!
Up to 353 coal-fired power plants in 31 states should be shuttered, the Union of Concerned Scientists said Tuesday.
The environmental group detailed its plan in a report, “Ripe for Retirement: The Case for Closing America’s Costliest Coal Plants.”
The group said the country’s older, less-efficient coal plants should be closed because it will cost more to install scrubbers than to use natural gas- or wind-powered generators instead.
The targeted coal plants produce about 6 percent of the country’s electricity and represent about 59 gigawatts of power generation capacity — or more than 48 times the amount of power needed to travel through time.
Oklahoma’s coal-fired plants were not on the list, even though Tulsa-based Public Service Co. of Oklahoma announced in April that it will close its last two coal units by 2016 and 2026.
