El Paso Reschedules Kinder Morgan Merger Vote
March 05 2012 - 11:36AM
Dow Jones News
El Paso Corp. (EP) has postponed a special meeting for
shareholders to decide whether to approve a takeover by Kinder
Morgan Inc. (KMI) after a Deleware court denied challenges to the
merger.
El Paso shareholders will vote Friday, three days after
originally scheduled, to approve the $21.1 billion takeover that
would create the largest natural gas pipeline company in the
country. The postponement will give shareholders "additional time
to consider" the Delaware Court of Chancery's March 1 opinion, El
Paso said.
El Paso shareholders had argued that the deal contained too many
conflicts of interest. Goldman Sachs Group (GS) was the banker for
El Paso while its private equity operations owned a 19% stake in
Kinder Morgan, and El Paso Chief Executive Douglas Forshee was also
privately interested in buying some of El Paso's businesses back
from Kinder Morgan after the merger was completed.
The Delaware judge said the deal process could continue but
critized its handling, adding that shareholders still have time to
prove the deal was "tainted by disloyalty."
-By Ben Lefebvre, Dow Jones Newswires; 713-547-9201;
ben.lefebvre@dowjones.com
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