From Bloomberg:
Oil India Ltd. (OINL), armed with as much as $1.3 billion of cash for acquisitions, will consider Chesapeake Energy Corp. (CHK)’s “corporate governance issues” before investing in the explorer’s shale assets in the U.S.
“We would certainly have to consider Chesapeake’s corporate governance issue,” Finance Director T.K. Ananth Kumar told reporters in New Delhi yesterday. “Investing in their assets is one of the opportunities we’re looking at for investments in the U.S.”
Chesapeake, the second-largest U.S. natural-gas producer, plans to sell as much as $14 billion in assets this year. Plummeting natural gas prices and revelations that Chief Executive Officer Aubrey McClendon used personal stakes in the company’s wells to obtain more than $800 million in private loans have resulted in the explorer losing almost half of its market value in the past year.
Some directors from Oil India met officials from Chesapeake in Oklahoma City, where the company is based, this month, Ananth Kumar said. Discussions to invest in the U.S. company’s assets are preliminary and one among other opportunities, he said....MORE
