Note to Civil Beat editors: "Merger" and "acquistiion" are not interchangeable terms, despite what HEI and its PR agents might wish for you and the public to believe. Any corporate lawyer will tell you so. The deal under consideration is an acquisition, the terms of which will result in NextEra continuing to exist as the sole owner of HEI, which will cease to exist as an independent entity and only remain as a non-traded unit of a corporate conglomerate. In a true merger, both partners would cease to exist and a new entity would come to exist. This is a friendly takeover as opposed to a hostile takeover, but it is a takeover "acquisition" nonetheless.