By Claudia Assis
- Bloomberg News
- Aubrey McClendon
Folks at Power Play, The Oklahoman’s energy blog, have stumbled across the websites for two companies they say former Chesapeake Energy Corp. Chief Executive Aubrey McClendon has set up since he was ousted from the natural gas company.
Oklahoma City-based Arcadia Capital LLC, bills itself as a family office that “manages investments in oil and gas, real estate development, and venture capital.”
Family offices are private companies the ultra-wealthy set up to manage their investments, estates and trusts full-time.
So that could be McClendon’s way of managing his considerable wealth or entering the business of providing services to other oil and gas barons.
The other site, McClendon Energy Partners, is virtually empty, with no tabs or information other than a blurry shot of a man’s torso, with a shirt and tie, and gesticulating hands.
McClendon rented office space less than a mile from Chesapeake’s headquarters and started a new company after exiting Chesapeake on April 1.
The new company, American Energy Partners, is now hiring, asking for candidates “excited about ground floor involvement” and sharing the mission “to help make American energy independent.”
American Energy Partner’s website is a little more substantial. Under the ‘”about” tab, the company says it has a “singular purpose”: “to capture some of the vast opportunities available today in America’s oil and natural gas industry.”
The website a month ago only had the company’s logo and a photo of a rig.
McClendon co-founded Chesapeake in 1989. The later months of his tenure, however, were plagued by criticism and accusations he profited from questionable transactions involving company property, including using his personal stake in Chesapeake wells as collateral to personal loans. An internal investigation found no wrongdoing, but McClendon “agreed to retire,” as Chesapeake put it.
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