Westar and Great Plains Energy have moved to overcome regulatory objections to their proposed combination by substantially amending the deal’s terms, as they look to create one of the largest Midwestern utilities – and one of the largest US buyers of wind power.
Rather than Great Plains buying Westar – and assuming a large amount of debt to do so – the companies’ boards have instead agreed to a stock-for-stock “merger of equals”, resulting in what would be a combined utility with market value of around $14bn.
