Four companies expressed interest to participate in the rebidding of the 650-megawatt Malaya thermal power plant in Pililla, Rizal, next month, state-run Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp. said Friday.
“There are four interested bidders that already secured bidding documents from PSALM. They are Panasia Energy Inc., Phinma Energy Corp. (new corporate name is AC Energy Philipines Inc.), Hill Trench Power Inc. and Therma Central Visayas Inc.,” PSALM president Irene Garcia said.
Garcia said the four companies sent representatives to participate at the pre-bid conference Thursday afternoon.
“I am optimistic that we can privatize Malaya at this second round of bidding,” the official said.
The board of PSALM earlier approved the disclosure of the reserve price for the Malaya power plant bidding to increase investor interest.
PSALM will rebid the Malaya thermal power plant and its underlying land in Pililla, Rizal on November 22. PSALM declared the bidding on September 18 a failure after only one submitted a bid.
“For this second round, I was able to get board approval to disclose the reserve price at least 5 days before the bid submission deadline. You will recall that there is an old policy that requires non-disclosure of the reserve price,” Garcia said.
“We feel that it increases the risk of another failed bidding. Hence, we proposed that we disclose the reserve price to the bidders once it has been set,” Garcia said.
She said another new provision in the rebidding was that in case only one submitted a bid in the second round of bidding, “PSALM can proceed to declare a failure of bidding of the said second round of bidding and then proceed to follow the rules on negotiated sale in opening and processing the lone bid so long as the bid is not below the reserve price set by the board.”
