In early 2013, during his last days as CEO of Chesapeake Energy, Aubrey McClen-don was one busy guy. Chesapeake's board gave him the boot following a litany of accusations about his rampant conflicts of interest, lavish perks, reckless bets and failure to disclose that he had personally borrowed around $1 billion, some from Chesapeake's own lenders. But before leaving the building, McClendon allegedly gave himself a parting gift According to a lawsuit filed by Chesapeake in February, he had his assistant print out highly sensitive maps of oil and gas prospects in Ohio's natural-gas-rich Utica shale formations, and he e-mailed more proprietary and valuable information to his private account. McClendon set up a new operation-American Energy Partners-in offices up the street from Chesapeake's Oklahoma City campus. He found a deep-pocketed partner in John Raymond, CEO of $15.5 billion Houston private equity outfit Energy & Minerals Group (and son of legendary Exxon CEO Lee Raymond). McClendon quickly got to work: By the time Chesapeake filed its lawsuit alleging theft of secrets, American Energy's Utica affiliate had already bought up more than $1.5 billion of acreage.
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