During one unsettled stretch of business while he was chairman and CEO of The Williams Cos. Inc., Joe Williams observed, “Everything is for sale but my wife and my huntin’ dog—and I’ll talk to you about the dog.”

“But at what price?” might be the question some Williams shareholders are asking after the firm announced a merger Sept. 28 with Energy Transfer Equity LP (ETE).

Williams shares, as well as Energy Transfer units, fell sharply following the announcement. The agreed-to, $37.7 billion price was below a $53.1 billion offer ETE made in June that was rejected as “significantly undervalued” by Williams’ board at the time.

However, the underlying value of the transaction remains close to the earlier bid, given the decline in the two firms’ stock market value in recent weeks. The new offer also includes $6 billion in cash for Williams stockholders, along with stock in a new C-corp, Energy Transfer Corp.

Retired in 1994, Joe Williams remains an honorary director of the company his uncle founded in 1908. Energy Transfer and Williams expect to close the deal in the first half of 2016 following a shareholder vote and customary antitrust reviews.

Analyst reaction to the announcement varied. “WMB says yes!,” Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co. said in an analysis the morning of the announcement. “Positive for ETE/WPZ (Williams Partners LP). We liked the deal as proposed three months ago and still do.”

Jefferies LLC released a mixed review in its analysis. “While the announcement of the agreed transaction will be viewed as a positive to many (Williams) shareholders given the uncertainty surrounding the space and inclusion of a cash consideration to the deal, we believe some shareholders may be disappointed as the implied value is identical to what was rejected just three months earlier and were perhaps expecting a marginal uplift in implied deal terms,” it said.

Oppenheimer & Co. worried that “significant underperformance by ETE is [a] concern about how the deal gets financed in a way that supports its effort to achieve investment-grade ratings,” but noted “the overall market for MLPs remains dismal, with the Alerian down 35% year to date.”

Stone Fox Capital Advisors was more negative, headlining its analysis with “Energy Transfer Equity won Williams, but shareholders lost.” The report added, “The lack of an increased bid and the negative implications of industry trends already had investors on high alert. The increased cash portion of the deal suggesting major shareholders at Williams want to cash out and the higher debt for the new entity didn't help. Not to mention, the biggest issue with the deal is the complexity and the lack of a compelling story regarding future synergies.”

Both firms saw their shares drop immediately, although broad market benchmarks, such as the midstream-heavy Alerian MLP Index and Standard & Poor’s 500, also were down but by smaller amounts. Williams stock on Sept. 28 opened at $39.57 per share and fell to $36.28 before recovering some of the loss to close at $36.56—a 7.6% loss—on very heavy volume of 31.2 million shares. Its losses continued the next day before the stock turned up slightly on Sept. 30.

Energy Transfer units also hit a rough stretch following the announcement, dropping 8.8% on Sept. 28 to close at $20.29. Volume also was heavy at 30.4 million units. ETE declined again the following day before turning up.

Moody’s Investors Service on Sept. 29 affirmed Energy Transfer’s Ba2 corporate family rating, its Ba2 senior secured debt rating and its SGL-3 liquidity rating. It changed its credit outlook for the Dallas-based firm to positive from stable. At the same time, Moody’s also placed Williams’ senior unsecured rating on review for downgrade from on review-direction uncertain. Separately, the announcement brought announcements by several law firms of potential class-action efforts for an alleged under-valuation of Williams.

Assuming the merger goes through, the new Energy Transfer Corp. will be a midstream behemoth that would rival Kinder Morgan Inc. in size. Oppenheimer & Co. noted in its report that “the transaction will create the third-largest energy franchise in North America and will add a range of synergies. Assets may also migrate across the different entities in the Energy Transfer family,” which would include Williams Partners, Sunoco LP and Sunoco Logistics LP.

And similar to C-corp Kinder Morgan, the surviving partnership would be treated as a conventional corporation rather than a master limited partnership. The new organization would have more than 100,000 miles of crude, gas and product pipelines; gather and process more than 19 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) of gas and transport more than 32 Bcf/d of gas.