New websites provide a few more clues about Aubrey McClendon’s latest ventures
Chesapeake Energy Corp. CEO Aubrey McClendon speaks at a 2010 energy conference.
I have stumbled across websites for two more new companies that former Chesapeake Energy CEO Aubrey McClendon has formed, Arcadia Capital LLC, and McClendon Energy Partners LP. You can read more here about about McClendon’s new exploration and production company American Energy Partners LP, which is now hiring.
On its website, Arcadia Capital describes itself as a “family office that manages investments in oil and natural gas, real estate development and venture capital.”
Will McClendon will use Arcadia Capital to manage his personal investments? You can read more here about family offices.
McClendon’s personal holdings are extensive, including a 283-acre tree farm in Arcadia, a $70 million stake in ProCure Treatment Centers, Inc., a 19 percent interest in the Oklahoma City Thunder, as well as several restaurants and real estate development projects.
McClendon Energy Partners remains something of an enigma. There’s nothing to see on the website but a blurry shot of McClendon’s torso and gesturing hands.
Somebody out there knows more. E-mail me at bbailey@opubco.com.
Aubrey McClendon’s new company is hiring….and he wants people to know it
Aubrey McClendon’s new exploration and production venture American Energy Partners, LP has put up two billboards on NW 63 announcing that the company is now hiring.
The signs are near NW 63 and Interstate 235 and NW 63 at N. Harvey Avenue — right across the street from American Energy Partners’ new headquarters in the Harvey Parkway office building.
The Oklahoman broke the story last week about McClendon’s new energy company.
The company’s website, www.ae-lp.com, also has been updated and now contains more information on McClendon’s vision for the venture.
As always, McClendon is dreaming big.
“We’re looking for the industry’s best and brightest to join our team and help build a best-in-class E&P company to create significant value for our partners, our employees, our community and our country,” the website says.
McClendon is looking to make American Energy Partners a new “industry leader,” according to the website.
“We are a start-up, but we are ready to make our mark,” the website says.
McClendon’s separation agreement prohibits him from poaching employees from Chesapeake. But those billboards have to be pretty hard to miss for Chesapeake workers who take I-235 to work and get off at NW 63.
Know more? Seen any more billboards? Let me know at bbailey@opubco.com or hit me up on Twitter.
Aubrey McClendon’s new company has a website
Aubrey McClendon talks to a Chesapeake employee during his farewell party in March at Chesapeake headquarters.
One of former Chesapeake Energy Corp.’s CEO Aubrey McClendon’s new companies, American Energy Partners LP, now has its website up.
There’s not much to see now, but from the looks of things McClendon is starting a new exploration and production company.
I wrote McClendon an e-mail at his new American Energy Partners e-mail address asking if he was willing to discuss his new venture with me. Promptly and politely, McClendon wrote back and said he was not ready to talk and probably wouldn’t be any time soon.
Click here for more on McClendon’s new ventures: American Energy Partners, McClendon Energy Partners and Arcadia Capital.
Aubrey McClendon is back in business
Aubrey McClendon’s companies have hung out their shingles at the Harvey Parkway building.
Just two weeks after leaving Chesapeake Energy, former CEO Aubrey McClendon appears to be moving full steam ahead with multiple new business ventures, at least two of them energy related.
As The Oklahoman first reported, McClendon has leased out the sixth floor of the Harvey Parkway building at 301 NW 63, just a few blocks away from Chesapeake’s main campus. He also has registered at least two new companies in the state of Oklahoma, Arcadia Capital LLC and McClendon Energy Operating LLC.
The entity American Energy Partners LP was also registered on the same day as McClendon Energy Operating by the law firm of former Chesapeake Energy director and long-time McClendon friend Shannon Self, records show.
All three companies have hung out their shingles at the Harvey Parkway.
The new companies have also registered several web domains. See here and here for details.
I paid a visit to the Harvey Parkway building Friday afternoon and spotted fresh paint in the parking lot. All of prime parking spots at the Harvey Parkway are now reserved for Suite 600 and American Energy.
Inside, a new flat-screen TV by the elevator notes that Arcadia Capital, McClendon Energy Partners and American Energy Partners are all headquartered in suite 600. Renovations are still ongoing on the sixth floor, but there is an office with the lights on just to the right of the elevator staffed with a receptionist.
McClendon & Co. is open for business, it seems.
McClendon also is taking some of the talent from Chesapeake with him, including Tom Price, a senior vice president who is leaving the company in May.
Will suite 600 at the Harvey Parkway give birth to Chesapeake 2.0? Only time will tell.
Chesapeake puts additional Ohio acreage up for sale
Faced with a lingering cash crunch, Chesapeake Energy Corp. is looking to sell up to $7 billion in assets this year.
The company has added close to 100,000 acres in Ohio’s Utica Shale to the properties it has listed with broker Meagher Energy Advisors. Chesapeake last summer listed more than 330,000 net acres in the area.
Chesapeake is refining its focus as it tries to rein in its budget and reduce drilling costs, acting CEO Steve Dixon said in a conference call last week.
Dixon said many of the assets Chesapeake will sell this year will be smaller acreage packages.
We are particularly pleased with the market’s response to the multiple small asset packages that we have offered,” he said. “Many of these assets may not be individually noteworthy to investors, but in aggregate, the combined value that we anticipate collecting this year will likely be very meaningful and lead to further progress in improving our balance sheet.”
The latest Ohio assets to hit the market include about 94,000 acres in Portage and Stark counties.
Cleveland reporter offers his take on Oklahoma City
A while back, I spent some time with John Funk, an energy and utilities reporter for The Plain Dealer in Cleveland. He was visiting Oklahoma City to get a look at how the energy industry has shaped the state.
His stories ran over the weekend. One looked at the state and its energy sector, while the other focused on Chesapeake Energy Corp., which has been a major player in Ohio’s emerging Utica Shale formation.
“Oil has been a leading industry in this state for at least three generations. It is so ingrained into the culture that it’s a way of life for people who live and work there. And now the industry is drawing a couple of thousands of new residents each month to Oklahoma City,” Funk wrote.
Questions still loom about how the discovery of new reserves of oil and natural gas will impact Ohio, where many people are concerned about the environmental impact of fossil fuel exploration and development.
Funk did not find evidence of such issues in Oklahoma.
“Wellheads and pump jacks are everywhere. So many they appear to outnumber the trees. Oklahomans seem unfazed by their existence. The oil and gas producing equipment is in shopping center parking lots, along city streets and interstate highways, at the Will Rogers Airport, even on the grounds of the state capitol building.”
Seems to me that John did a pretty good job of capturing our city during his visit. What do you think?
Former Devon exec, Chesapeake target to attend Harvard Divinity School
Anadarko Petroleum Corp. Executive Chairman James Hackett plans to attend Harvard Divinity School later this year, the Wall Street Journal reported.
“Jim Hackett will be attending Harvard Divinity School to become better prepared to write, speak and teach about faith and leadership, which has been a long-held interest of Jim’s and one of the key reasons he is retiring from Anadarko,” Anadarko spokesman John Christiansen said.
Hackett, 59, was president and chief operating officer at Devon after its 2003 merger with Houston-based Ocean Energy Inc. He became CEO of Anadarko later that year, then led the company’s 2006 acquisition of Oklahoma City’s Kerr-McGee Corp.
Hackett, who retired as Anadarko CEO in May, reportedly turned down the opportunity to replace co-founder Aubrey McClendon at Chesapeake in January.
Chesapeake is expected to name McClendon’s successor before he leaves the company April 1.
Chesapeake investors target Dell
Carl Icahn
Two activist Chesapeake Energy Corp. investors have teamed up again, this time targeting computer maker Dell Inc.
Southeastern Asset Management and billionaire investor Carl Icahn led the effort last year to unseat a majority of the Chesapeake board and force changes that have led to CEO Aubrey McClendon agreeing to leave the company at the end of the month.
Shortly after winning its battle with Chesapeake, Southeastern moved its focus to Dell, which has fallen behind other computer makers.
Southeastern — which owns 8.4 percent of Dell — has challenged an effort by founder Michael Dell to buy up the company at a price the shareholder says is too low.
The Dell board has endorsed the takeover plan in a move Southeastern has said places “the interests of management above those of public shareholders.
“The board of directors appears to have dismissed better alternatives for public owners and selected a transaction, which has been public derided by shareholders as opportunistic and grossly undervalued, that favors management,” Southeastern wrote in a letter filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Southeastern also has asked the directors to borrow money to pay shareholders a large one-time dividend.
As with its fight against Chesapeake’s directors, Southeastern has found itself with a powerful ally.
CNBC reported Wednesday that Icahn has bought up about 6 percent of Dell over the past few weeks.
Aubrey McClendon falls off Forbes billionaire list
Outgoing Chesapeake Energy Corp. CEO Aubrey McClendon is no longer a billionaire, according to the latest Forbes list of the wealthiest people on the planet.
The magazine points out that McClendon was forced to sell nearly all his Chesapeake shares in a 2008 margin call.
Chesapeake announced last month that McClendon will leave the company he founded on April 1 with a severance package worth about $47 million.
McClendon is falling off the list as it has been revealed that he’s leveraged against his personally held oil and gas interests in the same way he did with Chesapeake leading up to 2008. Put another way, the guy has mounds of debt,” Forbes reported.
Five Oklahoma families remain on the list this year, led by Continental Resources Inc. CEO Harold Hamm, who ranked No. 90 overall with a net worth of $11.3 billion.
Hamm was followed by Tulsa oilman and Bank of Oklahoma Chairman George Kaiser at $10 billion and ranked No. 109 overall.
Hobby Lobby founder David Green is listed at No. 276 with an estimated net worth of $4.5 billion.
Oklahoma retailers Tom and Judy Love tied with Lynn Schusterman — widow of Samson Resources’ Charles Schusterman — to round out the state’s presence on the list at No. 384 with a net worth of $3.5 billion.
Report: Chesapeake selling Bakken Shale acreage
Chesapeake Energy Corp. prides itself on having a leading acreage position in most of the United States’ most productive oil and natural gas plays.
But the Oklahoma City-based company is apparently throwing in the towel in the oil-rich Bakken Shale in North Dakota and Montana.
Upstream, an international oil and gas newspaper, reports Chesapeake is selling its entire 427,000-acre position in the Bakken, acknowledging it used flawed geological concepts when it amassed its position there in 2010 and 2011. The article is available only to subscribers, but free two-week trials are available.
Chesapeake, which does not list its Bakken holdings on its website, did not respond to a request for comment from The Oklahoman on Friday.
Chesapeake’s acreage is concentrated in two counties along what is believed to be the southern edge of the Bakken and Three Forks plays, according to Upstream, but the company’s drilling in that area was not fruitful.
Chesapeake’s inability to find oil there has been called the biggest drilling failure in North Dakota since the 1980s, KXNews reported in January.
Chesapeake now acknowledges it does not have the time or money to continue drilling in its Bakken acreage, Upstream reported, citing its review of sales documents.
Chesapeake has been selling assets since last year to overcome a cash crunch. The company, raised more than $11 billion last year, this week announced a joint venture with China’s Sinopec that will bring in another $1 billion for a stake in acreage in northern Oklahoma’s Mississippi Lime play.
