El Paso E&P Assets Might Have a Buyer (KMI, EP, APO)

When Kinder Morgan Inc. (NYSE: KMI) made its offer to buy El Paso Corp. (NYSE: EP) for $21 billion, the purchase included some assets of El Paso that Kinder Morgan is not particularly interested in. Reuters is reporting that Apollo Global Management LLC (NYSE: APO) and private equity firm Riverstone Holdings are preparing a $7 billion offer for El Paso’s exploration & production assets.

In all, Kinder Morgan is trying to sell off six separate pieces of El Paso and interested buyers have until mid-February to make their intentions known.

Kinder Morgan would especially like to sell the E&P assets because they are both quite valuable in today’s market and quite volatile, not like the nice, stable returns that are generated by pipeline operators.