Shares in Chesapeake Energy (NYSE:CHK) have risen 23.5% in pre-market trading following last night’s news that founder and former chief executive, Aubrey McClendon, has died.
McClendon, who was also a part-owner of the Oklahoma Thunder NBA franchise, left the US shale m group in 2013.
His death came a day after he was charged with conspiring to rig bids for oil and natural gas leases.
Police said the 56-year-old crashed his vehicle, a Chevrolet Tahoe, into an embankment on a sparsely populated two-lane road "at a high rate of speed" in Oklahoma City around 0900 EST.
Mclendon had denied the antitrust charges against him. The alleged conspiracy took place between December 2007 and March 2012, a federal indictment said on Tuesday.
The companies are accused of deciding who would win the bids, then giving an interest in the leases to the other company. The US Justice Department did not say which other company it believed was involved in the alleged scheme.
Chesapeake, meanwhile, had said on Tuesday that it did not expect to face criminal prosecution or fines related to McClendon's charges.
The company was founded by McClendon in 1989, and in 1993 a stock marker IPO valued the group at $25mln. It went on to become one of the major players and drivers of what became known as the US shale ‘boom’.
Trading at $3.41 ahead of Thursday’s opening bell, Chesapeake shares value the company at $2.4bn. Once trading started, the shares raced ahead 21% to $4.125 in the morning session.
In early 2014, prior to crude oil’s recent collapse Chesapeake shares changed hands in the market at around $30.