3 Indian cos bid for Singapore power giant

Three domestic power companies "" Reliance Energy, Tata Power and GMR Infrastructure "" have submitted indicative bids to acquire Singapore-government owned Tuas Power.

While Tata Power and Reliance Energy have decided to bid on their own, Bangalore-based GMR Infrastructure has formed a consortium with Macquarie Bank and Kuwait Fund for the purpose.

The price tag for the foreign asset could be at around $2 billion (Rs 8,000 crore).

The spokespeople of these companies declined comments.

The domestic power majors submitted their bids today, which was the last date of submission of indicative bids.

Industry sources said other interested parties include Hong Kong's China Light & Power, Hongkong Electric, Japan's Marubeni, Singapore's SembCorp Industries, Tokyo Electric Power Co, Australia's Babcock & Brown, General Electric and International Power Plc of the UK.

Tuas Power has a capacity of 2,670 Mw and accounts for 26.1 per cent of Singapore's electricity generation. It was put on the block by its promoters, the government-owned investment company Temasek.

Tuas Power posted a net profit of $121 million (Rs 475 crore) on revenues of $1.6 billion (Rs 6,300 crore) last year.

Temasek also intends to sell Power Seraya, which has a capacity of 3,100 Mw, and Senoko Power, with a capacity of 3,300 Mw.

The three generating companies accounted for 86.6 per cent share in Singapore.

The sale process of these three assets is expected to be over in the first half of 2009.

Singapore-based conglomerate Keppel Energy said it would not bid for Tuas Power. However, it may bid for other two power plants, it said.

Meanwhile, GMR today announced that it closed the country's largest qualified institutional placement of Rs 3,965 crore. It had launched the offering on December 5 and was priced on December 10.