IFM’s $6.5 Billion Buckeye Partners Buyout Beats Deal Challenge

IFM Investors Pty. Ltd. affiliates dodged litigation over their $6.5 billion take-private buyout of pipeline owner Buckeye Partners LP, when a Delaware judge ruled Wednesday that Buckeye’s board and the Australian asset manager engineered the transaction in good faith.

Vice Chancellor Joseph R. Slights III tossed the case from Delaware’s Chancery Court, throwing out claims that Buckeye’s directors structured the deal to transfer $350 million in post-closing income to IFM while sticking cashed-out investors with the tax bill.

Buckeye’s limited partnership agreement replaces “traditional fiduciary duties” with a contractual good-faith standard that the board satisfied, and the proposed class action ...