{"id":6227,"date":"2012-05-01T09:51:24","date_gmt":"2012-05-01T14:51:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/?p=6227"},"modified":"2012-05-01T09:54:01","modified_gmt":"2012-05-01T14:54:01","slug":"aubrey-mcclendon-out-as-chairman-of-chesapeake-energy-board","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/2012\/05\/01\/aubrey-mcclendon-out-as-chairman-of-chesapeake-energy-board\/","title":{"rendered":"Aubrey McClendon Out as Chairman of Chesapeake Energy Board"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Hunter Martin \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n

Chesapeake Energy CEO Aubrey McClendon during the Morgan Stanley Pro-Am Invitational at The Memorial Tournament in 2007.<\/p>\n<\/div>

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

The announcement comes amid growing scrutiny of a controversial corporate perk that allowed McClendon, the company\u2019s founder, to take personal stakes in every well the company drilled.<\/p>

The board is looking for an independent, non-executive chairman \u201cwith no previous substantive relationship with Chesapeake,\u201d the company says<\/a>.<\/p>

<\/p>

McClendon and Chesapeake have agreed to end the perk \u2014 the company\u2019s Founder Well Participation Program \u2014 18 months early.<\/p>\n

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<\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote>

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

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

\u201cWe 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,\u201d according to Chesapeake’s amended annual report, which was filed Monday, reports<\/a> The Oklahoman<\/em>\u2019s Jay Marks.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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\u2019s founder, to take personal stakes in every well the company drilled.The board is looking for an independent, non-executive chairman \u201cwith no […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":6232,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[301],"tags":[360,275],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6227"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6227"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6227\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6235,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6227\/revisions\/6235"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}