Bloom Off the Rose? McClendon $eeks Help from Investment Banks
We always thought Aubrey McClendon could sell snow to Eskimos–as the now-politically incorrect but old saying goes. Aubrey can charm money out of your grandmother. At last check more than a year ago he’d raised $8.7 billion of OPM–other people’s money–for use in his aggressive drilling ventures (see Aubrey McClendon Raises Huge $8.7B for Shale Drilling…So Far). We’re pretty sure that number exceeded $10B at some point over the past year. But then this year we began to hear whispers that Aubrey wasn’t paying his bills (see Problematic: McClendon’s AEP Not Paying Some of its Bills). And then Bloomberg published a hit-piece saying Aubrey had sold his investors a bill of goods (see Has Aubrey McClendon Finally Hung Himself with High Debt?). Indeed it appears the bloom is off the money-raising rose for Aubrey. According to inside sources, Aubrey has hired investment banks (plural) to help him find more money to keep going…
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Three weeks ago MDN told you that Aubrey McClendon and his American Energy Partners had made their first foray into international oil and gas drilling (see 
We finally get to close the loop on a story we first brought you in 2013 (see 
We don’t know how he does it, but it seems Aubrey McClendon can charm money out of just about anyone. Not even two weeks ago we told you that McClendon cut a deal to lease 21.5 million acres in Australia for shale drilling (see 
It’s not often that MDN writes about natural gas drilling in Australia. This time there’s a tie-in with the Utica/Marcellus. Aubrey McClendon, former CEO of Chesapeake Energy ejected from the company he-cofounded by an evil corporate raider (Carl Icahn); Aubrey McClendon, founder of American Energy Partners and subsidiary American Energy Appalachia Holdings that has since fled and become its own company called Ascent Resources; Aubrey McClendon, who could charm a billion dollars from Satan himself and leave old Lucifer smiling at being shafted; that Aubrey McClendon has just signed a deal with an Australian company to secure the rights to drill on 21.5 MILLION acres Down Under (in Australia). This is Aubrey’s first foray outside of the United States–and boy what a splash he’s making! Never mind McClendon’s Ascent Resources is saddled with so much debt it can’t repay that Moody’s Investors Service has downgraded the company to its lowest rating level, meaning “Substantial risks – In default” (see 
Everybody’s suing everybody. That about sums up the mess created (sadly) by none other than Aubrey McClendon. The subsidiary businesses that were once part of McClendon’s new company, American Energy Partners (AEP), continue to run away from Aubrey as fast as they can. On Monday, Ascent Resources, once called American Energy Appalachia Holdings but separated from the AEP mothership in June (see 
Aubrey McClendon’s new American Energy Partners continues to shed its component parts. Just two weeks ago MDN brought you the news that the largest subsidiary of the company in the Marcellus/Utica region, American Energy Appalachia Holdings, is being spun out into a 100% standalone company, changing its name to Ascent Resources (see 
Does Aubrey McClendon’s American Energy Partners (AEP)–the new company he founded after being unceremoniously booted from Chesapeake Energy–have cash problems? You certainly wouldn’t think so. At last check in May 2014, McClendon had raised a staggering $8.7 billion in little more than a year (see 
We have major news coming from Aubrey McClendon’s American Energy Partners (AEP). A lot of news. So buckle in. First we’ll tell you the news, then we’ll give you our take on that news–what it means. In brief, the news coming from AEP HQ in Oklahoma City is this: (1) AEP’s Marcellus/Utica AEP subsidiary, American Energy Appalachia Holdings, has been spun out into a 100% standalone company and has changed its name to Ascent Resources; (2) the CEO of Ascent is the same guy who was the CEO of American Energy Appalachia Holdings–trusted McClendon lieutenant Jeffrey A. Fisher; (3) Ascent has cut a deal with Gulfport Energy to sell 35,000 prime Utica Shale acres for $407 million; and (4) Ascent has just sold shares in the company and taken out new loans for $977 million, giving them $700 million in cash after they pay off certain other loans. Whew! Here’s the details, along with a little news of our own about AEP…
In February 2014 MDN told you about a deal cut by wildcatter Aubrey McClendon to lease 130,000 acres in the Ohio Utica Shale, a deal with three different companies (see 
Ever hear of a special-purpose acquisition company, or SPAC? How about a “blank check company”? No, neither had we. The man who once described himself as the biggest fracker in the world, Aubrey McClendon, filed paperwork with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on April 7 to float an initial public offering (or IPO) for a company called Avondale Acquisition Corp., which describes itself in the filing as a “newly organized blank check company” that will “focus on potential mergers or other deals with existing businesses in the onshore U.S. oil and gas sector.” It is, in a sense, just a different pocket being sewn onto Aubrey’s trousers from which he can dip his hand in and pull out money placed there by other people–to buy more leases and operations in places like the Utica and Marcellus. How much money does Aubrey hope to find in that pocket? About $200 million…
Aubrey McClendon, former CEO of Chesapeake Energy, current CEO of American Energy Partners and the media’s favorite bad boy of fracking–knows a thing or two about developing a deep bench. In addition to Aubrey’s focus on natural gas drilling, he’s one of the co-owners of the Oklahoma City Thunder NBA basketball team. So Aubrey knows it’s good to have a lot of talent on the bench and in the game. In that spirit, Aubrey has just made three more hires to, as he says, “broaden and deepen” his management team. Yesterday American Energy Partners announced that it has hired Scott D. Sachs as Senior Geoscience Executive Advisor, James C. Johnson as Senior Marketing and Midstream Executive and Traci D. Cook as Chief Accounting Officer…