A chief executive officer with a track record of facilitating deals could help KKR & Co. succeed in its roughly $9 billion takeover bid for power and fuel company UGI, according to Jefferies Financial Group analysts.

The transaction, if it proceeds, would mark KKR's second multibillion-dollar acquisition of a liquid fuel supplier this year, giving the firm a sizable presence in the European market for such products. In an earlier deal, the New York fund manager joined infrastructure investor Energy Capital Partners last month in a proposed take-private of European fuels distributor DCC Energy at a roughly $7.7 billion enterprise value.

More recently, KKR made its move on UGI with an offer to take it private for $42.50 a share, The Wall Street Journal reported last week, citing people familiar with the matter. New York-listed UGI's shares closed with little change Friday at $37.59, up about 7% since the Journal's report.

The company is led by Chief Executive Robert Flexon, who returned to UGI about two years ago after a previous stint as its chief financial officer. Jefferies noted Flexon's history of leading companies that were the subject of mergers and acquisitions under his watch as potentially supportive of KKR's offer.

"We believe senior UGI management is receptive to strategic alternatives," the investment bank's analysts wrote.

King of Prussia, Pa.-based UGI owns several businesses, including a natural-gas and electricity utility in Pennsylvania, as well as suppliers of liquefied petroleum gas in both the U.S. and Europe. The company also operates natural-gas infrastructure, including pipelines and storage tanks.

UGI's conglomerate-like structure is the opposite of the simpler, sector-focused industrial businesses that investors largely favor today, and this historically has weighed on its shares, said Paul Zimbardo, a managing director in equities research at Jefferies who focuses on sectors such as power, utilities and energy infrastructure.

"In general, public market investors look for more pure plays, and UGI is like the definition of a sum of the parts with very different businesses," he said. "It has suffered from that for a long time."

An acquisition by a large private-equity firm with experience in carving out business units that can be sold or set up independently could help UGI streamline its operations, Zimbardo said. KKR ended June with about $796.5 billion in assets across various investment strategies.

"There's a strategic rationale for why private equity would look at this as a business in which they could do different things, put pieces in different places," he added.

Flexon led power company Dynegy during its acquisition by Vistra Energy about eight years ago in a roughly $1.7 billion deal. Earlier this year, utility Nexus Water Group, where Flexon was chairman, sold assets to American Water across eight states for about $315 million.

"He has a pretty extensive M&A history from his Dynegy days," Zimbardo said of 67-year-old Flexon.

Since Flexon rejoined UGI, the company has made some moves to divest business units. In April, the company agreed to sell its electric division to private-equity firm Argos Infrastructure Partners, and it recently trimmed its liquefied-natural-gas operations in Europe.

Rising demand for natural gas to feed utility-scale generating plants powering artificial-intelligence data centers could boost UGI's energy-infrastructure business, which would benefit KKR if the buyout succeeds, Zimbardo said.

Owning DCC and UGI would give the firm a significant footprint in the European liquid-fuels market, but it could also subject the latest deal to tighter regulatory scrutiny, he said. That's especially true in France, where DCC and UGI respectively own Butagaz and Antargaz. Together, they account for roughly 70% of the French market for liquefied petroleum gas, he added, citing public documents. The fuel is used for cooking and heating and powers some vehicles and industrial processes.

"I'm far from an expert on [European Union] and French antitrust and competition [rules]," Zimbardo said. "But 70% is a large number."

KKR declined to comment. UGI didn't immediately reply to messages seeking comment.