Aubrey McClendon will step down as chief executive after a tumultuous year in which a series of Reuters investigations triggered civil and criminal probes of the second-largest U.S. natural gas producer.
Report from Reuters is HERE
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A person familiar with the terms of McClendon's departure said it was being treated as "termination without cause," ENTITLING the CEO to some of the most generous benefits laid out in an employment contract that details a wide range of severance scenarios.
McClendon is ENTITLED to total compensation of about $47 million. That figure includes $11.7 million in total cash compensation based on McClendon's salary and bonus, which will be paid out over a period of four years. It also includes restricted stock awards already given to McClendon that have a value of $33.5 million, the person familiar with the compensation package said.
He is also ENTITLED to deferred compensation of about $800,000 and personal use of corporate jets that could be worth up to $1 million over four years, the person said.
Huffington Post article is HERE
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From 2012:
The lavish and leveraged life of Aubrey McClendon
According to internal documents reviewed by Reuters, the unit's accountants, engineers and supervisors handled about $3 million of personal work for McClendon in 2010 alone. Among other tasks, the unit's controller once helped coordinate the repair of a McClendon house that was damaged by hailstones.
Fourteen miles south, at Will Rogers World Airport, Chesapeake leases a fleet of planes that shuttle executives to oil and gas fields -- and the McClendon family to holiday destinations. On one trip, the clan took flights to Amsterdam and Paris that cost $108,000; McClendon counted the trip as a business expense. In another case, Chesapeake logs show, nine female friends of McClendon's wife flew to Bermuda in 2010 without any McClendons aboard. The cost: $23,000.
Closer to home, McClendon pursues another of his passions: the Oklahoma City Thunder, the NBA franchise in which he owns a 19 percent stake. As with other assets, McClendon has melded his Thunder interest with Chesapeake business. The energy company signed a $36 million sponsorship deal, and it pays up to $4 million annually to brand the stadium Chesapeake Energy Arena.
What hasn't been previously disclosed is that McClendon mortgaged his future proceeds from the team to secure two bank loans. The AKM unit, the jet flights and the Thunder relationship are part of the lavish but leveraged lifestyle that McClendon has built through Chesapeake, America's second-largest natural gas producer.
From the 111-acre corporate campus that he shaped with a meticulous eye for detail, McClendon has intertwined his personal financial interests with those of the publicly traded corporation he runs to a far greater degree than shareholders may realize, according to interviews, public records and hundreds of pages of internal Chesapeake documents reviewed by Reuters.
McClendon, 52, has put longtime friends on the Chesapeake board and showered them with compensation. Restaurants he has co-owned occupy buildings owned by the energy company. A Chesapeake executive has handled the CEO's personal land and oil- and gas-well transactions.
Few outsiders are privy to the sophisticated universe of services that Chesapeake provides McClendon.
Read more HERE
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Source: POLLUTERWATCH.COM
