Endeavor Energy explores sale for as much as $30 billion

Endeavor Energy explores sale for as much as $30 billion

Endeavor Energy Partners is exploring a sale that could value the largest privately-held oil and gas producer in the Permian basin, the top US oilfield, at between $25 billion and $30 billion, according to people familiar with the matter.

The sale would come almost 45 years after Texas oilman Autry Stephens started the company that would become Endeavor. The 85-year-old wildcatter has decided to capitalize on a wave of mega deals sweeping the sector, the sources said.

Stephens has asked JPMorgan Chase bankers to prepare to launch a sale process for Endeavor in the first quarter of 2024, the sources said, cautioning no transaction is certain and asking not to be identified because the deliberations are confidential.

Stephens has considered offers from suitors for Endeavor in the past, including in 2018, Reuters has reported. He now wants to settle the company's future rather than let his estate decide after his death who it should sell it to, the sources said.

Endeavor and JPMorgan declined to comment.