As it stands now, the equity portion of the bid has risen 11 percent, to $30 a share.

The companies have declined to estimate the value of the equity portion of the agreement.

As a result, the equity portion of the fund has increased to about 55 percent of assets from 35 percent.

But profit on the equity portion would come from charges for gas shipped.

In most leveraged buyout transactions, the equity portion is usually about 20 percent.

That $183.6 million investment alone could probably furnish the equity portion in a leveraged acquisition, they said.

Similarly, the equity portion of private pension funds rose to 44 percent from 38 percent.

In addition to asset management, the company has an indexes and private equity portion of the business.

But a person close to the talks said the sources of that equity portion were apparently still unresolved.

The fund's targeted yield is 5 percent tax free, plus 3.5 percent on the equity portion.