Investors turn up heat on Chesapeake, Sandridge

摘要

Activist investors are stepping up the pressure on US energy companies. Chesapeake Energy chief executive Aubrey McClendon — the man who amassed the largest portfolio of North American shale leaseholds — has decided to retire on 1 April at the age of 53 rather than continue to clash with his reconstituted board of directors on strategy and policy decisions. And McClendon’s fellow Chesapeake co-founder, Tom Ward, could be next in the firing line, as activist shareholders question his business practices as chief executive of US upstream independent Sandridge Energy.