Pipeline giant The Williams Companies on Sunday rejected a US$64 a share all-stock takeover offer from competitor Energy Transfer.
The move comes as Williams works to reconfigure its operations amid pressure from shareholders, and during a consolidation wave among pipeline operators in North America.
After roughly six months of attempts to engage with Williams, Energy Transfer said it was unable to start a friendly dialogue about a merger, forcing it to make an unsolicited bid.
Energy Transfer said it does not foresee any regulatory hurdles to its merger bid, however, the Dallas-based company said its offer is contingent on Williams cancelling a 13 May acquisition of its MLP interest Williams Partners.
Williams Cos. rejected the stock-based takeover offer from pipeline magnate Kelcy Warren and has hired banks to explore alternatives to the offer that it said undervalued the group, according to a statement on Sunday.
Should a deal be done it would rank near the largest in the pipeline industry. The biggest so far is Kinder Morgan Inc.º£½Ç³Ô¹ÏÍø™s consolidation of its partnership assets last year that was valued at US$48.9 billion when announced.
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