J.R. Ewing is back on television, and the oil and gas business is seeing a reprise of the boom times he came to symbolize in the 1980s. M&A in the sector is as active as it’s been in a generation, despite the lack of a blockbuster merger so far this year. The largest oil and gas acquisition announced last year, Kinder Morgan Inc.’s $38 billion purchase of rival natural gas pipeline operator El Paso Corporation [Big Deals, December 2011], has spawned three other large deals. Apollo Global Management LLC teamed with Riverstone Holdings LLC and Access Industries Inc. to pay $7.15 billion for El Paso’s oil and gas exploration and production unit [Big Deals, April], and Kinder Morgan Inc. agreed in August to sell $6.2 billion in assets to affiliate Kinder Morgan Energy Partners L.P., which in turn struck a deal to sell $3.3 billion in assets to Tallgrass Energy Partners. Below we detail the advisers on those two asset sales and several other transactions in the sector.
Kinder Morgan Energy Partners / Tennessee Pipeline
Kinder Morgan Energy Partners L.P. agreed on August 6 to pay Kinder Morgan Inc. $3.86 billion for the Tennessee Gas Pipeline and a 50 percent stake in the El Paso Natural Gas Pipeline. The buyer also assumed $2.36 billion in debt in the deal, which closed in August.
