PSALM prequalifies 4 bidders for Malaya plant; sale moved to next year

By Myrna M. Velasco – December 4, 2018, 10:00 PM
from Manila Bulletin

State-run asset seller Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corporation (PSALM) has prequalified four bidders on the targeted divestment of its 650-megawatt Malaya thermal power plant sited in Rizal province.

PSALM President Irene Joy B. Garcia

These are: AC Energy Inc. of the Ayala group; listed firm D.M. Wenceslao and Associates Inc., DMCI Power Holdings Corporation; and FGen Reliable Energy Holdings Inc.

PSALM President Irene Joy Garcia nevertheless disclosed that the bid submission for the facility sale will be moved to around March next year because the company will still need to tap a third party consultant that will undertake valuation for the asset.

“We will come up with a bid bulletin that will say, we will change the dates. (December 3) was our board meeting, we had the board approved the new schedule for this one (bidding), as well as the consultancy for Malaya,” she said.

Garcia said they will soon issue a new request for proposal on the consultancy services for the valuation – of which work coverage might stretch for two months from January next year.

She qualified “we have to bite the bullet and we have to revise the calendar and we will now ask the Board to issue another request for proposal for the consultancy… this time, to allot much longer time.”

Garcia explained that the bidding for the consultancy services is important to be accomplished first, “so that we can get a third party valuator that will become the basis of our board of directors for setting the floor price.”

The PSALM chief executive stressed “for the bidding, we will move it, but we will not change the bidding process here…the submissions of documents had already been consummated, but we will not change the bidding process,” she said.

Of the 11 investor-groups that submitted letters of interest, only four advanced into document submissions, Garcia stressed, intimating further that “it was quite a surprise for us that while there were 11 bidders that signified intention, the others did not submit the documents required.”

With the four firms that already completed document submissions, Garcia deemed “these are the serious bidders…we already checked their documents, and so far, all are satisfactory.”