Kansas City, MO-based UtiliCorp United has completed its previously announced short-form merger of its Aquila Inc. subsidiary with a UtiliCorp subsidiary. In November 2001, UtiliCorp unveiled its plans to buy back the 20% of its trading and risk management arm, Aquila, that it sold to the public earlier in 2001 and adopt Aquila as its corporate name (see Daily GPI, Nov. 8, 2001).

On January 4, UtiliCorp said it accepted the approximately 76% of Aquila Class A common shares that were tendered by Aquila stockholders in UtiliCorp’s exchange offer. The short-form merger enabled UtiliCorp to acquire the shares of Aquila that were not tendered in the exchange offer and regain 100% ownership of Aquila (see Daily GPI, Jan. 7). On January 7, Aquila Class A shares were publicly traded for the last day.

“Today’s market is very different from early last year, and calls for a different approach,” said Robert K. Green, UtiliCorp CEO. “We strongly believe that greater shareholder value can be obtained by recombining the financial strength of UtiliCorp with Aquila’s growth potential.”

Under the terms of the exchange offer, Aquila shareholders received 0.6896 shares of UtiliCorp common stock in a tax-free exchange for each outstanding share of Aquila Class A common stock tendered. Each remaining Aquila Class A share was converted by the short-form merger into the right to receive UtiliCorp common stock using the same exchange ratio.

UtiliCorp said it will continue to trade under its UtiliCorp name until later in the first quarter, when it said it plans to adopt “Aquila” as its corporate name and trade under the “ILA” ticker symbol formerly used by Aquila.

UtiliCorp United is an international electric and gas company with energy customers and operations across the Unites States and in Canada, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and Australia. Its Aquila, Inc. subsidiary is one of the largest wholesalers of electricity and natural gas in North America. Aquila also provides wholesale energy services in the U.K. and has a presence in Scandinavia and Germany.

©Copyright 2002 Intelligence Press Inc. All rights reserved. The preceding news report may not be republished or redistributed, in whole or in part, in any form, without prior written consent of Intelligence Press, Inc.