GMR may raise $3 billion to fund power projects

GMR Infrastructure, which sold shares to billionaire George Soros and Citigroup Inc in December, plans to raise $3 billion (Rs 12,000 crore) over “four or five years’’ to help fund expansion of power projects.

The Bangalore-based company, with interests in power plants, airports and roads, might raise about $2 billion through debt and $1 billion from equity markets to help increase its power capacity six-fold.

GMR Infrastructure had $2 billion of debt as of February 29, of which 7 per cent is in foreign currencies, the company said.

Read more in The Business Standard article.

REL, GMR in race for Singapore co

Singapore's state investor Temasek has chosen nine firms including Marubeni and HongKong Electric as bidders for Tuas Power, which could raise $2 billion as part of the city-state's energy liberalisation. The sale of Tuas will be the first of three power generators that Temasek Holdings hopes to sell by June 2009, which analysts say will offer potential investors a low-risk route to steady profits.

Sources close to the deal named six bidders: Japan's Marubeni, Li Ka-shing's Hongkong Electric, India's Reliance Energy, a joint venture of Macquarie, and India's GMR Infrastructure, Malaysia's Tanjong and Huaneng Power.

A third banking source advising one of the bidders said that there could be nine shortlisted firms in total, including the One Energy JV owned by Hong Kong's CLP Holdings and Japan's Mitsubishi, Bahrain-based investment bank Arcapita and Spain's Union Fenosa.

Read more in The Times of India article.

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 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.

Read more in The Business Standard article.