Deals

A 30-Year-Old Analyst Is Taking on a Pipeline Billionaire

Hedgeye’s Kaiser wants to expel Energy Transfer parent
Kelcy Warren has about $3 billion in Energy Transfer Equity

Sections of pipe sit on top of wooden supports at an Energy Transfer Partners LP construction site for the Sunoco Inc.Â MarinerÂ EastÂ 2Â natural gas liquids pipeline project near Morgantown, Pennsylvania, U.S. on Aug. 4, 2017. The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection hasÂ issuedÂ four notices of violation after "inadvertent" spills of drilling fluids associated with horizontal directional drilling for the project.Photographer: Charles Mostoller/Bloomberg

Provide news feedback or report an error

Confidential tip?

Send a tip to our reporters

Site feedback:

Take our Survey

By Tim Loh

November 21, 2017 at 2:00 PM UTC

This article is for subscribers only.

Kevin Kaiser was on an airplane this summer, staring into his laptop, when he came up with the idea for taking on billionaire pipeline magnate Kelcy Warren.

He was scrutinizing a nearly year-old prospectus for Sunoco Logistics Partners LP’s acquisition of Energy Transfer Partners LP, an agreement that merged two parts of Warren’s energy empire. For months, the 30-year-old Hedgeye Risk Management LLC analyst had heard clients complain that the deal -- along with a host of other Energy Transfer moves -- enriched Warren but did little to benefit Energy Transfer Partners unitholders, Kaiser said in an interview.