Aubrey McClendon Out as Chairman of Chesapeake Energy Board

• Joe Wertz
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  Joe Wertz was a reporter and managing editor for StateImpact Oklahoma from 2011-2019. He reported on energy and environment issues for national NPR audiences and other national outlets. He previously worked as a managing editor, assistant editor and staff reporter at several major Oklahoma newspapers and studied journalism at the University of Central Oklahoma.

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Chesapeake Energy CEO Aubrey McClendon during the Morgan Stanley Pro-Am Invitational at The Memorial Tournament in 2007.

Aubrey McClendon is stepping down as chairman of Chesapeake Energy but will remain CEO, the company said this morning.

The announcement comes amid growing scrutiny of a controversial corporate perk that allowed McClendon, the company’s founder, to take personal stakes in every well the company drilled.

The board is looking for an independent, non-executive chairman “with no previous substantive relationship with Chesapeake,” the company says.

McClendon and Chesapeake have agreed to end the perk — the company’s Founder Well Participation Program — 18 months early.

Concerns about a compensation plan, approved by the board, were amplified this month following reports that McClendon took out more than $1 billion in loans to pay for his stake in the wells. He got the money from groups that may have done business with Chesapeake in the past, the Associated Press reports.

The news jolted shares of Chesapeake, which surged 9.4 percent this morning, the Wall Street Journal reports. The company’s stock has been battered by recent headlines. Last week, Standard & Poor’s downgraded Chesapeake corporate credit rating over its “corporate governance practices.”

Analysts and shareholders have pressured the company since news of the loans broke. The Securities and Exchange Commission is informally investigating, and the Internal Revenue Service is reviewing the program, the company disclosed in a regulatory filing.

“We have been in discussions with representatives of the IRS and believe that resolution of these details will not have a material impact on the company,” according to Chesapeake’s amended annual report, which was filed Monday, reports The Oklahoman’s Jay Marks.