UPDATE: INSIDE TRACK: Energy Transfer Equity Chairman Buys Units
14 7월 2011 - 11:47PM
Dow Jones News
NEW YORK (Dow Jones)--Kelcy Warren, the chairman of Energy
Transfer Equity LP (ETE), is so confident in his company's
prospects that he has almost all of his net worth invested in its
units.
Last week, Warren spent another $31.6 million to buy 750,000 ETE
units, bringing his ownership Dallas-based limited partnership to
just under a 20% stake, worth nearly $2 billion. ETE owns two other
public partnerships that process and distribute natural gas.
Warren's purchases come as ETE maneuvers against rival suitor
Williams Cos. (WMB) to buy Southern Union Co. (SUG). Southern Union
had agreed last week to ETE's sweetened, cash-and-unit deal that
valued Southern Union at $40 per share, but Thursday morning,
Williams announced it had hiked its all-cash offer to $44 from $39
per share, valuing Southern Union at roughly $9.4 billion on an
enterprise basis, a measure that combines a company's stock market
value and its total debt, less cash.
Williams said in a letter to Southern Union that it believes it
and Southern Union can finalize terms of a new deal by Tuesday, at
which point Southern Union would tell ETE it was going to accept
the Williams offer.
A Williams spokesman declined to comment beyond the press
release announcing the new proposed deal. A spokeswoman for ETE
didn't immediately respond to an email request for comment. A
Southern Union spokesman didn't immediately return a phone
call.
So far, Warren's investment, made at an average purchase price
of $42.18 per unit, has looked savvy. The units were off 36 cents
at $44.42 in Thursday morning trading following the Williams
announcement, but are up 5.3% since his purchase.
Acquiring Southern Union would add to ETE's capacity, allowing
it to participate in an expected boom in natural-gas usage. Even if
the deal isn't successful, however, ETE will likely benefit as the
U.S. increasingly turns to natural gas for electricity generation;
as demand for natural gas rises, companies that serve the industry,
like ETE, are likely to benefit.
Five of seven analysts tracked by FactSet research rate ETE buy
or overweight, while two rate the units at hold. The average price
target on ETE is $48.67, a 9.6% premium to recent ETE prices. The
units, which went public at $21 each in early 2006, hit an all-time
high of $47.34 apiece last month, after recovering from an all-time
low of $14.92 near the end of 2008.
Warren says his ETE purchases, which were disclosed in
regulatory filings, are only tangentially related to the Southern
Union deal. He says the proposed acquisition, which has been
complicated by the back-and-forth with Williams, caused his
company's units to trade "on the noise," rather than the
fundamentals.
In a Tuesday interview arranged by the company, Warren noted
that he has bought significant blocks of ETE in the past. He says
he only buys when he gets the approval of his general
counsel--which isn't often given the strict requirements for when
insiders can buy and sell--and that he's staying in ETE for the
long haul.
"I can't think of a better place to put my money," Warren, 55
years old, told Dow Jones Newswires. He praised ETE's "nice yield,"
currently around 5.6% annually, and ETE's potential for growth with
or without Southern Union. He added that he'll "never sell" any of
his ETE stake.
Warren's holdings generate a payout--a distribution similar to a
dividend--of more than $100 million a year at current distribution
levels, which can vary with the partnership's earnings.
ETE owns the general partners of Energy Transfer Partners LP
(ETP) and Regency Energy Partners LP (RGNC). Partnerships like
these are formed to limit or eliminate federal and state tax
burdens, instead paying out most or all of their profits to the
unit-holders and partners, who in turn pay taxes on those
distributions.
Units are akin to common stock, but carry different tax
responsibilities and voting rights as defined under the issuing
partnership.
-By Maxwell Murphy, Dow Jones Newswires; 212-416-2171;
maxwell.murphy@dowjones.com
Regency Energy Partners LP - Common Units Representing Limited Partner Interests (MM) (NASDAQ:RGNC)
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Regency Energy Partners LP - Common Units Representing Limited Partner Interests (MM) (NASDAQ:RGNC)
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