Teaching Note: KN Energy, Inc. (A), (B), and (C)

The KN Energy, Inc. (A), (B), and (C) cases were, and are, intended for use as sequential developments of the corporate case story and its learnings.
These successively ordered cases describe real events as they unfolded in a successful growing midstream energy company located in the heart of the United States operating in a dynamic capital-intensive industry in the late 1990s. I have used this case-sequel in my own teaching activities pretty much every year since 2000.
KN Energy, Inc. (A) presents how the Denver-based company expanded into related diversified business activities along the natural gas value-chain throughout the Rocky Mountains and Mid-continental region of the United States until early 1998. The dynamic leadership headed by CEO and Chairman, Larry Hall, was growth-oriented with a clear focus on core competencies linked to natural gas distribution and up- and downstream services from the Mexican Gulf to regional gas-fueled power plants further onto corporate and household energy-users. This effort was rewarded by the stock market as a steady demand for company shares generated a three-year unbroken rise in the stock price.