Goldman Sachs, The Carlyle Group, and Riverstone Holdings will sell 63 million of their common shares of publicly Houston-based Kinder Morgan, one of the largest energy companies in North America. The private equity firms participated in a buyout of Kinder Morgan in 2006, led by founder Richard Kinder. The company went public again in February 2011. [...]

Kinder Morgan Energy Partners said Wednesday that it has agreed to buy 50% in a joint venture that owns the Altamont gathering, processing and treating assets, as well as the Camino Real Gathering System. The seller is KKR. Kinder Morgan is pay $300 million for the stake. The deal is expected to close at the [...]

A group of investors led by Apollo Global Management has agreed to buy El Paso Corp.’s oil and gas exploration and production assets for about $7.15 billion. The deal is subject to the completion of the merger between Kinder Morgan and El Paso Corp., as well as other customary closing conditions. Other investors include Riverstone [...]

Market volatility may have slowed down M&A but there still are some bright spots.

So far in 2011 there have been 503 U.S. announced mergers that are private equity backed. These deals are valued at$77.5 billion, which compares to the 632 deals for all of 2010 that totaled $69.34 billion, Dealogic says. Transaction values, according to the data, are up 12%.

However, these totals don’t include the mammoth Kinder Morgan deal. Kinder Morgan agreed to buy El Paso Corp. for about $38 billion, including debt, earlier this month. CORRECTED: The Carlyle Group, and Goldman Sachs Inc.’s buyout arm, Highstar Capital, along with Riverstone Holdings, bought Kinder Morgan in 2007. Kinder Morgan went public earlier this year but the PE firms still hold stakes.

(Reuters) – Kinder Morgan Inc. struck a $21 billion deal to buy rival El Paso Corp., combining the two largest natural gas pipeline operators in North America in a huge bet on the fast-growing market for that fuel.

The cash and stock deal announced on Sunday values El Paso at a 37%  premium to its Friday market value, and comes as Exxon Mobil Corp. and other oil majors are spending billions of dollars to develop and produce shale gas and crude oil in areas with poor infrastructure.

Kinder Morgan went public in February after CEO Kinder and private equity firms including Carlyle Group and Goldman Sachs Inc.’s buyout arm Highstar Capital and Riverstone Holdings took the company private in a management led buyout in 2007.

The private equity firms sold a 13.5% stake in the company’s IPO, but Kinder and the buyout funds still hold a vast majority of the company.

Recent IPO filings by the likes of Freescale Semiconductor Inc. and HCA Inc. may lead some to conclude that mega-buyouts circa 2005-2007, once at grave risk from the recession, are finally in the clear.

That may turn out to be the story. But an article published last week by three credit analysts at ratings agency Standard & Poor’s—Allyn Arden, William Wetreich and Kenneth G. Drucker—suggests many of the largest deals from the golden age of private equity remain at risk of defaulting on their debt obligations (see table, next page). Were the economy to stall, or worse, they could well go belly-up.

When it comes to global IPO activity, 2011 has seen the liveliest start to a year on record. So far this year, companies have raised $24 billion, up 20% from year-ago levels, according to Thomson Reuters. China leads in volume, accounting for 41% of new issue activity, followed by the United States at 35% and [...]

(Reuters) – Pipeline company Kinder Morgan Inc, which was taken private in a $14.6 billion management buyout in 2007, is preparing for an initial public offering, according to a source familiar with the matter. It was unclear whether Houston-based Kinder Morgan, backed by Carlyle Group CYL.UL and Goldman Sachs Group Inc’s (GS.N) buyout fund, has [...]