NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Shares of Chesapeake Energy are down 0.66% to $20.94 in midday trading Tuesday, after the company filed suit alleging that its founder and former CEO Aubrey McClendon stole confidential company data during his last few months on the job to launch his new oil and gas firm, Reuters reports. According to the civil complaint filed by Chesapeake in Oklahoma County District Court, McClendon "misappropriated highly sensitive trade secrets from Chesapeake" and "used these trade secrets for the benefit of" American Energy Partners, which he founded in 2013, Reuters added. More specifically, Chesapeake alleges that the information was used to acquire drilling rights on land in the Utica Shale formation, Reuters noted. Exclusive Report: Jim Cramer's Best Stocks for 2015 STOCKS TO BUY: TheStreet Quant Ratings has identified a handful of stocks that can potentially TRIPLE in the next 12 months. Learn more. Oklahoma City-based Chesapeake is a natural gas and oil exploration and production company. Separately, TheStreet Ratings team rates CHESAPEAKE ENERGY CORP as a Hold with a ratings score of C+. TheStreet Ratings Team has this to say about their recommendation: "We rate CHESAPEAKE ENERGY CORP (CHK) a HOLD. The primary factors that have impacted our rating are mixed, some indicating strength, some showing weaknesses, with little evidence to justify the expectation of either a positive or negative performance for this stock relative to most other stocks. The company's strengths can be seen in multiple areas, such as its robust revenue growth, growth in earnings per share and increase in net income. However, as a counter to these strengths, we also find weaknesses including a generally disappointing performance in the stock itself, weak operating cash flow and poor profit margins." Highlights from the analysis by TheStreet Ratings Team goes as follows: The revenue growth greatly exceeded the industry average of 20.6%. Since the same quarter one year prior, revenues rose by 17.2%. This growth in revenue appears to have trickled down to the company's bottom line, improving the earnings per share. CHESAPEAKE ENERGY CORP has improved earnings per share by 8.3% in the most recent quarter compared to the same quarter a year ago. The company has demonstrated a pattern of positive earnings per share growth over the past year. We feel that this trend should continue. This trend suggests that the performance of the business is improving. During the past fiscal year, CHESAPEAKE ENERGY CORP turned its bottom line around by earning $0.68 versus -$1.62 in the prior year. This year, the market expects an improvement in earnings ($1.56 versus $0.68). The debt-to-equity ratio is somewhat low, currently at 0.71, and is less than that of the industry average, implying that there has been a relatively successful effort in the management of debt levels. Even though the company has a strong debt-to-equity ratio, the quick ratio of 0.46 is very weak and demonstrates a lack of ability to pay short-term obligations. Net operating cash flow has decreased to $1,162.00 million or 14.30% when compared to the same quarter last year. Despite a decrease in cash flow of 14.30%, CHESAPEAKE ENERGY CORP is in line with the industry average cash flow growth rate of -16.12%. CHK has underperformed the S&P 500 Index, declining 12.44% from its price level of one year ago. The fact that the stock is now selling for less than others in its industry in relation to its current earnings is not reason enough to justify a buy rating at this time. You can view the full analysis from the report here: CHK Ratings Report STOCKS TO BUY: TheStreet Quant Ratings has identified a handful of stocks that can potentially TRIPLE in the next 12 months. Learn more.
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