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By Euan Paulo C. Añonuevo, Reporter
INVESTOR interest in state-owned National
Transmission Corp. (TransCo) has dropped, as only a handful out of
the original 21 groups that earlier expressed interest, beat the
deadline for the submission of pre-qualification documents.
Froilan A. Tampinco, Power Sector
Assets and Liabilities Management Corp. (Psalm) vice-president for
asset management, said that five groups have submitted documents for
the 25-year TransCo concession.
“These will be evaluated within
the next three weeks and the announcement of the prequalified
bidders is in October 20,” he said.
In separate disclosures to the
Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE), two of the investor groups
confirmed their submission of proposals for TransCo as of press
time.
They include Metro Pacific
Investment Corp.’s (MPIC) Two Rivers Pacific Holdings Corp. as
Terna-Rete ElettricaNazionale S.p.A. of Italy’s new consortium
partner, and Monte Oro Grid Resources Corp. (MOGRC) in partnership
with State Grid Corp. of China.
Both groups, with the exception
of MPIC which replaced Citadel Holdings as Terna’s partner, as
well as the consortium of Triratna Holdings Corp., Newbridge Asia IV
L.P. and Tenaga Nasional Berhad participated in TransCo’s previous
auction. In that auction, the Citadel-Terna consortium was the only
group that submitted an offer, forcing Psalm to declare a failed
bidding.
Under Psalm’s requirements,
bidders for the TransCo concession must have a member or affiliate
with experience in operating and maintaining electricity
transmission systems comparable to that of the Philippines, with at
least 6,000 circuit kilo-meters, a minimum 6,000 megawatts peak
demand.
The member of the prospective
bidder who meets the technical prequalification criteria must have a
net asset value or market capitalization of $500 million.
Bidders should also have the
capability to form a concessionaire that will meet the 60 percent
Filipino ownership restrictions for grantees of a public utility
franchise. The largest foreign and Filipino members of the
prospective bidder will also need to pass a net asset value market
capitalization test.
This will be the fourth attempt
to privatize the country’s lone power transmission utility.
Psalm, which is tasked to
privatize the state’s power assets, said it would be sticking to
TransCo’s old valuation of about $3 billion.
The bidding date for TransCo has
been set for December 12.
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