Delaware rules in Kinder Morgan’s favour regarding merger voting requirements

The Delaware Chancery Court has denied a preliminary injunction sought by plaintiffs who wanted to block the 20 November 2014, vote by Kinder Morgan Energy Partners, L.P. (KMP) unitholders on the proposals related to the merger transactions under which Kinder Morgan, Inc. (KMI) will acquire all of the publicly held shares/units of KMP, Kinder Morgan Management, LLC (KMR) and El Paso Pipeline Partners, L.P. (EPB). The Court also agreed with Kinder Morgan by holding: “[u]nder the plain language of the Partnership Agreement, the Merger only requires the affirmative vote of holders of a majority of the outstanding limited partner units, voting together as a single class.”

Kinder Morgan Chairman and CEO Richard D. Kinder said: “We are gratified by the Delaware Chancery Court’s ruling and look forward to moving forward with the special meetings on 20 November for shareholders/unitholders to vote on the transaction. Once approved, we anticipate closing this transaction by Thanksgiving. We believe merging the companies benefits our shareholders and unitholders, simplifies the Kinder Morgan story by transitioning to one security and paves the way for superior growth at KMI for years to come. KMI projects a dividend of US$ 2.00 per share for 2015, a 16% increase over the budgeted 2014 KMI dividend target of US$ 1.72 per share, and the company expects to grow the dividend by approximately 10% each year from 2015 through 2020 while producing excess coverage of over US$ 2 billion.”

Adapted from press release by Rosalie Starling

Read the article online at: https://www.worldpipelines.com/business-news/07112014/delaware-rules-in-kinder-morgans-favour-regarding-merger-voting-requirements-991/