Kansas-based Liberty Propane was sold by Sterling Partners, the Baltimore-based private equity firm, to Inergy LP, the listed, Missouri-based energy company.

The deal to buy the energy company for $223 million makes Inergy LP the fourth-biggest retail propane operator in the US. Liberty is the ninth-biggest propane retailer in the US.

The deal marks an exit for Sterling after having held onto the asset for seven years, making over that time more than two dozen deals to support Liberty Propane’s expansion. In recent years, Liberty has absorbed Pennsylvania-based Holidaygas, Colorado’s Navajo Butane and Jenkins Gas Co., in North Carolina.

Since the 2003 deal in which Sterling Partners established Liberty Propane and provided it with a $20 million initial capital commitment, the PE firm has gone on to support the Kansas energy company in making 26 deals across 11 states that brought it more than 100,000 additional customers.

Kim Vender Moffat, a principal with Sterling Partners who worked on the deal, was not available for comment and Inergy did not respond to requests seeking comment.

Separately, Inergy also bought propane assets of MGS Corp., a New Jersey-based company. It is expected the deal will close in mid-January.

John Sherman, president and chief executive of Inergy, said his company is “greatly expanding our presence in our core Northeast and Mid-Atlantic market areas” and also looking to the “new footprint in the attractive western US propane market.”

More M&A should be nothing new for those following Inergy, since its’ founding in 1996, the company has made more than 80 deals to support its expansion.

Energy industry