Hot Kinder Morgan IPO, Closer & Closer (KMI, KMP, KMR)

Kinder Morgan, Inc. (NYSE: KMI) is soon to be public again.  We have covered this on multiple occasions and listed it as one of our Top 17 IPOs to Watch in 2011.  Unless things drastically change in the next week or two, this will be a widely received IPO that we would either expect a premium to or a higher price to by the time the deal opens.  If you have followed any of the Kinder-related entities through time, you will know why.  Kinder Morgan Energy Partners LP (NYSE: KMP) and Kinder Morgan Management LLC (NYSE: KMR) are the other two Kinder Morgan entities mentioned, and the performance of these should more than speak for the warm reception.  That is true even if this is a re-IPO where it is the private equity firms taking all of the IPO proceeds.

Kinder Morgan Holdco LLC will offer 80,000,000 shares of common stock under its existing registration statement with the SEC.  The expected price was put at $26 to $29 per share.  This should end up being the largest private equity-backed IPO so far.  We are currently looking for the IPO to come late next week.  While investors should be concerned on the surface that all of the common stock being sold will be sold by existing investors, Kinder Morgan’s other entities vouch for the offering here.  The good news is that no members of Kinder Morgan management are selling in the offering, including Richard Kinder.

Selling shareholders include entities under or affiliated with Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE: GS), Highstar Capital LP, The Carlyle Group and Riverstone Holdings LLC.  The common stock offered will represent an approximately 11.3% interest in the newly named Kinder Morgan, Inc., or approximately 13.0% if the underwriters exercise their over-allotment option.

Goldman Sachs and Barclays Capital were selected as the final joint book-running managers; co-managers are listed as BofA Merrill Lynch, Citi, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, J.P. Morgan, Wells Fargo, Madison Williams, Morgan Keegan, Raymond James, RBC Capital Markets, and Simmons & Company International.  The selling stockholders will grant the underwriters a 30-day option to purchase up to 12,000,000 additional shares of common stock.

Kinder Morgan Energy Partners LP (NYSE: KMP) and Kinder Morgan Management LLC (NYSE: KMR) charts (from BigCharts.com) are below:

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JON C. OGG