[seahorse3]

Chesapeake Energy has had its share of financial problems, but they've just been compounded with new revelations that their CEO is pledging assets of the company for personal loans.

http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/breakout/chesapeake-energy-plunges-ceo-debt-165736649.html

If this is the state of the NG industry, it will not come riding to the energy rescue.

[dinopello]

Chesapeake Energy has had its share of financial problems, but they've just been compounded with new revelations that their CEO is pledging assets of the company for personal loans.

http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/breakout/chesapeake-energy-plunges-ceo-debt-165736649.html

If this is the state of the NG industry, it will not come riding to the energy rescue.

Reuters says the loans are being used to finance McClendon's re-investment in the same assets he's using as collateral.

He's apparently using the loans secured by his stock to buy more stock. The fact that he wants to buy more stock (regardless of the source of funds) seems to indicate he has a positive view of the company's future stock price. It's shady to be sure, but not sure what it says about the economics of the company.

A CEO with the vig running on $1.1 billion has entirely different concerns than your average "Buy and Hold" investor.

The primary concern seems to be that his gigantic loan of 1.1 billion requires him to come up with quite a bit of cash each month to service the interest and there is a concern that he will make decisions for the company based on his personal cash flow needs.

They think he didn't do anything illegal. It's amazing to think that these Billionaires are just never satisfied with a few billions, they are willing to pull crazy stunts like this in the hopes of being a 10's of billionaire.

[seahorse3]

It's indicative of fraud. This guy sits at the helm of one of the NG flagship companies. Many of the energy boards have argued that NG companies are misleading the public about the true status of reserves, production, blah blah blah. With stand up guys like this, who can't be trusted by his own shareholders, how can we trust the figures they put out? It certainly doesn't help his company or the reputation of the business.