After announcing in December that he would relinquish the role of CEO of Kinder Morgan Inc. (KMI) to current COO Steve Kean, Richard Kinder said during a Jan. 21 earnings call that the transition will occur on June 1. Kinder will continue to act as executive chairman after the change.

“I can assure you this is not going to change in any way the way the company is being run,” Kinder told analysts during the call. “The office of the chair will still consist of Steve [Kean], [CFO] Kim [Dang] and myself, and post-June 1, I will still be involved in all major decisions including acquisitions and expansion projects.”

The announcement comes on the heels of KMI’s statement that it would acquire Hiland Partners LP for total consideration of about $3 billion. Hiland’s assets are mostly fee-based and include crude oil gathering and transportation pipelines and gas gathering and processing systems primarily in the Bakken Shale formation in North Dakota and Montana. Kinder Morgan expects the acquisition to be moderately accretive to its cash available for dividends in 2015 and 2016. Kinder was positive about the near- and long-term prospects for the acquisition during the conference call with analysts, stating that he expects accretion to “[ramp] up thereafter.”