MLPs Rework GP Relationship to Lower Capital Costs

摘要

Midstream giant Enterprise Products Partners, the largest US master limited partnership (MLP), simplified its complex corporate structure last week by buying out its publicly traded general partner (GP) in a $9.1 billion deal, including debt assumption (EIF Sep.8,p6). To be sure, if anyone could stand to "streamline its corporate structure, it was Enterprise. But flow chart simplification aside, Enterprise's move brought to the forefront an emerging trend in the aging MLP sector: a revisit of the original GP-MLP relationship and the financial incentives that go along with it.