Southwest Gas Rejects Icahn’s Latest Offer to Buy Utility

(Bloomberg) -- Southwest Gas Holdings Inc. rejected billionaire investor Carl Icahn’s latest offer to take over the utility. 

“By his own admission, Mr. Icahn’s offer fails to compensate Southwest Gas stockholders fairly for the upside potential inherent in their share ownership,” the company said in a statement on Monday. The activist investor had offered $82.50 a share. 

Icahn, who owns about 5% of Southwest Gas, has been trying to take it over since October, when the company rebuffed his objections and moved forward with plans to buy Questar Pipelines from Dominion Energy Inc. for about $2 billion.

Southwest Gas’s board turned down Icahn’s previous offer of $75 a share, saying it wasn’t in the best interest of shareholders and undervalued the company. Southwest stock was down about 1.2% at 10:30 a.m. on Monday in New York. 

The utility said earlier this month that it plans to spin off Centuri Group Inc., a construction business that Icahn had pushed it to sell. The billionaire criticized the move as a vague promise and bashed Southwest Chief Executive Officer John Hester, calling him “the quintessential example of what is wrong in corporate America.”

(Adds share price in fourth paragraph.)

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