State Grid Corp. of China and China Southern Power Grid Co. are among early bidders for a stake in Chilean utility Transelec SA that could fetch about $1 billion, according to people familiar with the matter.
The Chinese state-owned firms are bidding for a 27.7 percent holding in the company being sold by Brookfield Asset Management Inc., said the people, who asked not to be identified because the information is private. The Toronto-based asset manager has also received non-binding offers from several other suitors, one of the people said.
Brookfield, Canada’s largest alternative-asset manager, is part of a group that bought the power transmission company in 2006 for about $1.7 billion from Hydro-Quebec and an affiliate of the World Bank Group. Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, British Columbia Investment Management Corp. and Public Sector Pension Investment Board comprise the remainder of the consortium.
Representatives for Brookfield and Transelec’s other investors declined to comment, while a Beijing-based spokesman for State Grid said he couldn’t immediately comment. Representatives for China Southern Power Grid and Transelec didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
Santiago-based Transelec, founded in 1943, supplies cities as well as industrial and mining users in Chile. The company operates 57 substations and 9,609 kilometers (5,971 miles) of power transmission lines in the country, according to its website.