Shlachter, Perotin, Fuquay, & Co.

Posted on Thu, May. 08, 2008

SHLACHTER, PEROTIN, FUQUAY & CO.

By Barry Shlachter, Jim Fuquay, Maria M. Perotin
Star-Telegram Staff Writers

Gas driller Chesapeake makes 'Fortune'

Fort Worth's natural gas drilling boom and its most visible driller, Chesapeake Energy and co-founder Aubrey McClendon, are subjects of feature-length reports in the latest Fortune magazine.

The May 12 edition of the glossy business journal details the birth, growth, near-death and rebirth of the Oklahoma City-based company in an article titled "Meet Mr. Gas," illustrated by a big color shot of McClendon with a gang of drillers. McClendon and partner Tom Ward, self-employed landmen, started the company in 1989, went public in 1993, couldn't find any takers when they put their baby up for sale after petroleum prices collapsed in the late 1990s and then bet big on the natural gas boom.

Revelations: McClendon as much as called the governor of Connecticut a liar after she mentioned Chesapeake by name in a news release calling for a federal investigation into rising natural gas prices; he also eats muesli for breakfast, majored in history at Duke and is married to a Whirlpool heiress.

Peter Elkind of Fort Worth, who has written for Texas Monthly and is co-author of the well-reviewed Enron postmortem, The Smartest Guys in the Room, contributes a sidebar on Cowtown's transformation to part of the Oil Patch. Elkind reviews the urban-drilling saga in which "once-struggling oilmen and big landowners are suddenly flush with gas money, while thousands of average homeowners are now collecting modest monthly royalty checks."

Fort Worth Mayor Mike Moncrief (who has a relative whose middle name is "Oil," we're told) says the boom has "inoculated our economy" from recession while acknowledging "that balancing the quality-of-living issues with the financial benefits can be 'a delicate tightrope to walk.'"

And Elkind refers to Chesapeake's much-repeated billboard motto, "Together, We All Win," as "vaguely Marxist."

Chesapeakeans say McClendon's e-mailed response to that choice of words was a brief, "Oh, my."

Messing with Texas

When the Super Bowl XLV Host Committee's logo was unveiled Monday, there were no longhorns, bluebonnets or oil rigs.

It was just the new Dallas Cowboys stadium with its open roof and a Cowboys star.

The absence of anything that screams Texas wasn't for lack of trying on the committee's part.

"There were things we would have liked to have done, but the NFL has to check off on it," said Roger Staubach, chairman of the host committee.

Staubach said they looked at dozens of designs, although he wouldn't elaborate what some of the options looked like.

And although this logo may be seen all over the Metroplex as the committee signs sponsors and recruits volunteers, it won't be the logo for the game itself. The official Super Bowl game logo is designed by the NFL.

Jerry's money

The economic downturn doesn't seem to be hurting Cowboys owner Jerry Jones' wallet.

He said this week that the credit crunch won't affect his billion-dollar-plus budget for the new stadium in Arlington.

"We have several options to call upon," Jones told reporter Andrea Ahles at a news event at the stadium. "We didn't hang our hats on any one source, so we know we can complete our plans."

More than a half-billion dollars has been spent so far on the new Dallas Cowboys stadium, which is scheduled to open in fall 2009. The team could have issued up to $475 million in auction-rate bonds -- a type of bond that has recently seen soaring interest rates -- but only exercised part of that amount.