France's Suez-Tractebel is highest bidder for Philippines' Calaca plant - UPDATE |
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Tue, 16 Oct 2007 10:17
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MANILA (Thomson Financial) - France's Suez-Tractebel submitted the highest bid of 786.5 million US dollars at an auction Tuesday to acquire ownership of the Calaca coal-fired power plant, the Philippines' Power Sector Assets & Liabilities Management Corp (PSALM) said.Suez-Tractebel, an independent power producer and a wholly owned subsidiary of Suez, will be officially declared the winning bidder immediately after a review of its offer, PSALM said in a statement.Philippine-listed First Gen Corp and AES Corp were the two other bidders for the 600-megawatt power plant located in the province of Batangas, south of Manila.PSALM, which handles the privatization of all of the government's power plants and transmission facilities, said all bids for Calaca were above the reserve or floor price set by the government. It did not disclose the reserve price.Suez Tractebel has set up a special purpose company, Calaca Holdco, for its bid and for the operation of the power plant, one of the biggest power assets of the government.The government has attached a 287-MW power supply contract to the Calaca facility to provide the new owner a ready market for the plant's output.Manila Electric Co, also known as Meralco and supplier of power in metropolitan Manila and nearby areas, will assume the biggest portion of the contracted energy, or about 169 MW, PSALM said.The Calaca facility was first offered to investors in June 2005, but the auction was cancelled after two of the three bidders backed out shortly before the deadline for submission of offers.The second round of bidding, which was held in April 2006, was also declared a failure because only one bidder made it to the venue of the bidding within the deadline.The government has so far sold 10 of the 31 power plants of state-owned National Power Corp. Those that have been privatized account for nearly 40 percent of the aggregate capacity of all power plants in northern and central Philippines.It is hoping to sell at least half of those assets before the year ends, and has also set for Dec 12 the bidding for a 25-year concession to operate the national grid.enrico.delacruz@thomson.comed/jg/ed/jgCOPYRIGHTCopyright Thomson Financial News Limited 2007. All rights reserved.The copying, republication or redistribution of Thomson Financial News Content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Thomson Financial News.
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France's Suez-Tractebel declared highest bidder for Philippines' Calaca plant 