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In recent years, master limited partnerships have become an increasingly popular — and lucrative — structure for oil and gas companies.

They pay no corporate taxes and distribute all profits to shareholders, making them a hit with investors.

But on Sunday, the biggest M.L.P. of them all announced it was disbanding the unique structure and reorganizing into a traditional corporation.

Kinder Morgan, which encompasses a huge network of oil and gas pipelines across North America, will acquire its three associated companies and reorganize as one corporation based in Houston.

The new Kinder Morgan will have an estimated enterprise value of about $140 billion — $100 billion of market value and $40 billion of debt — making it the third-largest energy company in the United States, after Exxon and Chevron.

“This simplifies the structure and will allow us to get to this turbocharged growth,” Richard D. Kinder, chief executive and co-founder of Kinder Morgan, said in an interview.

Mr. Kinder pioneered the M.L.P. structure in the 1990s and became a billionaire by overseeing Kinder Morgan’s growth for nearly two decades. He will own 11 percent of the new company, a stake that will account for about $11 billion of his fortune.

Under the deal’s terms, Kinder Morgan will acquire its two related M.L.P.s — Kinder Morgan Energy Partners and El Paso Pipeline Partners — and a third related company, Kinder Morgan Management, for $71 billion.

Kinder Morgan will pay a premium for each company, and use mostly stock to fund the purchases, allowing shareholders of the three targets to essentially continue their ownership.

The deal exposes one of the significant challenges M.L.P.s face: the need to constantly acquire new assets to continue increasing the dividends they pay investors.

Smaller M.L.P.s continually buy new assets to satiate this need. But Kinder Morgan’s related companies had grown so large that it was difficult to find suitable targets. Furthermore, because the companies were paying out such large dividends, they were hard pressed to comfortably finance big transactions.

The simplified structure will allow Kinder Morgan to become more acquisitive in a new American oil and gas boom. The move will also free up cash for the company to invest in new capital expenditures needed to accommodate new reserves of natural gas being tapped across North America.

Under the existing structure, Kinder Morgan’s related companies were obliged to pay out a majority of their profits to investors, including significant payments to Kinder Morgan itself.

The distributions had grown so large in recent years that Kinder Morgan was lending money back to the related companies so they could fund growth. It was a profitable arrangement, but became overly complex and ultimately constricted the combined companies’ growth, Mr. Kinder said.

“It had dragged our cost of equity so high that it was difficult to compete in terms of acquisition opportunities,” he said.

Though the Kinder Morgan empire will no longer have the advantages of M.L.P.s, the combined company is expected to continue to pay out a generous dividend.

Mr. Kinder said he expected the new company to pay an annual dividend of $2 per share in 2015, a 16 percent increase over the anticipated payout this year. The company also projects it can increase its dividend by about 10 percent a year through 2020, which would make it a rare large cap company with a big and fast-growing dividend.

Kinder Morgan and its related companies oversee a vast network of pipelines and terminals that ferry oil and natural gas from their sources to refineries. The companies have grown steadily for more than a decade by building new lines and acquiring rivals.

One of the big advantages of M.L.P.s is the fact that they pay no taxes. Under its new classification as a C corporation, the enlarged Kinder Morgan will be subject to a higher statutory rate than its related companies were as M.L.P.s.

But the size of the deal will let Kinder Morgan enjoy certain tax benefits. It expects about $20 billion in income tax savings over the next 14 years, softening the blow of the reorganization. Mr. Kinder said there would also be small cost savings from managing one company instead of four.

“Even though I’m the largest shareholder and one of the two co-founders,” he said, “it’s hard to understand.”

Barclays and Citi advised Kinder Morgan, and Barclays is financing the deals. Weil Gotshal & Manges and Bracewell & Giuliani provided legal advice to Kinder Morgan. Jefferies advised Kinder Morgan Energy Partners and Kinder Morgan Management and Baker Botts provided legal advice to those two companies.

Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Company advised El Paso Pipeline Partners and Vinson & Elkins provided legal advice to El Paso.