{"id":7067,"date":"2012-06-04T09:32:14","date_gmt":"2012-06-04T14:32:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/?p=7067"},"modified":"2012-06-04T09:32:14","modified_gmt":"2012-06-04T14:32:14","slug":"chesapeake-agrees-to-replace-four-board-members","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/2012\/06\/04\/chesapeake-agrees-to-replace-four-board-members\/","title":{"rendered":"Chesapeake Agrees to Replace Four Board Members"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_6887\"  class=\"wp-caption module image right\" style=\"max-width: 300px;\"><a class=\"fancybox\" title=\"Chesapeake Energy's Oklahoma City campus.\" href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2012\/05\/chesapeake-campus1.jpg\" rel=\"\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-6887\" title=\"Chesapeake Campus\" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2012\/05\/chesapeake-campus1-300x198.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"198\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Joe Wertz \/ StateImpact Oklahoma<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Chesapeake Energy&#39;s Oklahoma City campus.<\/p>\n<\/div><p>The Oklahoma City natural gas giant has agreed to replace four board members with candidates proposed by its two largest shareholders.<\/p><p>Southeastern Management Co., which has a 13.6 percent stake in Chesapeake, will propose three new directors; Billionaire activist investor Carl Icahn, who <a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/2012\/05\/25\/carl-icahn-is-once-again-a-chesapeake-investor\/\">recently purchased<\/a> a 7.6 percent stake, will propose one.<\/p><p>A fifth board member is set to retire at the company\u2019s annual shareholder meeting on June 8, and will be replaced by a new independent chairman, the company announced Monday. Chesapeake has been searching for a new chairman to replace CEO Aubrey McClendon, who agreed last month to step down amid <a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/2012\/05\/29\/chesapeake-energy-everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-worlds-biggest-fracker\/\">scrutiny<\/a> of his personal finances.<\/p><p><!--more--><\/p><p>McClendon will relinquish the chairmanship once his replacement is appointed, and Chesapeake will announce the new board composition later this month, it said in a statement.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The move comes as the oil-and-gas company has been grappling with mounting debt, a string of corporate-governance controversies and low natural-gas prices, <a href=\"http:\/\/online.wsj.com\/article\/SB10001424052702303830204577446130008185176.html\">writes<\/a> the <em>Wall Street Journal<\/em>\u2019s Tess Stynes.<\/p><\/blockquote><p>\u201cI have great respect for the talent, commitment and dedication of our current Board members, each of whom has played a key role in helping build our successful company,\u201d McClendon said in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.chk.com\/News\/Articles\/Pages\/1702016.aspx\">a statement<\/a>. \u201cAt the same time, I look forward to working with our new directors to continue creating substantial shareholder value from the extraordinary set of assets Chesapeake has acquired and developed in recent years.\u201d<\/p><p>Representatives for Southeastern and Icahn praised the move in prepared statements.<\/p><p>\u201cThese steps to reconstitute the Board will enhance oversight and provide greater accountability,\u201d said O. Mason Hawkins, chairman and CEO of Southeastern.<\/p><p>Icahn said the response showed the board\u2019s willingness to listen and respond to shareholder concerns.<\/p><p>\u201cUnder Aubrey\u2019s leadership, Chesapeake has assembled great assets and I am confident I can help the Company create significant shareholder value from these assets,\u201d Icahn said. \u201cWe enjoyed a very good relationship when I acquired almost 6% of the Company\u2019s stock in late 2010 and I look forward to a similarly constructive relationship now.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Oklahoma City natural gas giant has agreed to replace four board members with candidates proposed by its two largest shareholders.Southeastern Management Co., which has a 13.6 percent stake in Chesapeake, will propose three new directors; Billionaire activist investor Carl Icahn, who recently purchased a 7.6 percent stake, will propose one.A fifth board member is [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[301],"tags":[360,370,275],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7067"}],"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=7067"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7067\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7071,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7067\/revisions\/7071"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}