Pickens Shuns Wounded Chesapeake First Time Since 2008: Energy
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T. Boone Pickens, the Texas billionaire who spent the past decade promoting U.S. natural gas as an alternative to Middle East oil, has walked away from the nation’s second-largest gas producer and the man he calls a friend as Chesapeake Energy Corp.’s value dropped by a fourth.
Pickens’s sale of almost half a million Chesapeake shares in the past six weeks comes as the 83-year-old hedge-fund manager maintains his longstanding praise for Chesapeake’s “visionary” chief executive officer, Aubrey McClendon. The decision to unload his stake marks the first time Pickens hasn’t held shares in the company since 2008, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.