According to the Wisdom Financial APP, Chesapeake Energy (CHK.US) and Southwestern Energy (SWN.US) announced on Thursday that the proposed $7.4 billion merger's HSR waiting period has ended, and the two companies are expected to complete the transaction in the first week of October.

After the transaction is completed, the merged company will be renamed Expand Energy Corporation, with the stock code "EXE", and will trade on NASDAQ on the second day of the transaction's completion.

In April of this year, after receiving a second request for information and documentation from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, the expected merger completion time for the two companies was delayed to the second half of this year.

HSR is one of the prerequisites for completing the transaction. In 1976, the U.S. Congress passed the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act, which requires large companies to declare to the Federal Commission or the Department of Justice's Antitrust Division before a merger can be completed. The transaction cannot be completed unless the waiting period specified by the law ends or the government approves an early termination of the waiting period.

The transaction was first announced in January of this year, with Chesapeake Energy announcing at the time that it would acquire competitor Southwestern Energy for approximately $7.4 billion in an all-stock transaction. This transaction will form a company worth about $24 billion and may become the largest natural gas producer in the United States.