"Why Oil Tycoon Rich Kinder Feels Undervalued" (KMP; KMI)

From the WSJ's Corporate Intelligence blog:

Oil and natural gas pipeline magnate Rich Kinder feels undervalued.

Kinder Morgan Energy Partners’ profit more than doubled in 2013. And it’s controlling partner, Kinder Morgan Inc, had a six-fold increase in net income last year. But the companies’ stock prices have underperformed the market by a wide margin, Mr. Kinder lamented to investors and analysts this week while discussing earnings.

The last time Kinder Morgan felt so unloved by Wall Street was 2006, prompting Mr. Kinder to take it private a year later in a $22 billion deal.

Despite solid results from pipeline, crude-by-rail, and coal export units – not to mention $15 billion worth of projects in development – one of the bigger buyers of Kinder Morgan Inc. stock these days appears to be the chairman himself. Mr. Kinder picked up 828,000 shares in December alone, spending an estimated $27.6 million.

“I look out there and I see this huge damn footprint across North America and every time we turn around we see more ability to extract value out of it,” he said of the company’s extensive network of pipes, rail terminals, export facilities and ships used to shuttle energy around the U.S. and Canada.

“I guess I haven’t been successful in convincing the rest of the world of that, because a lot of people don’t see it,” Mr. Kinder said....MORE