Search results for

Following is a directory of upcoming projects and related financing in the Latin American power sector. To report new deals or provide updates, please call Amanda Levin, Reporter, at (212) 224-3292 or email: alevin@iinews.com

CMS Energy and its advisor Merrill Lynch are set to announce a sale imminently of assets associated with its Panhandle Pipeline Co, says a banker close to CMS. He adds that Warren Buffett's MidAmerican Energy is emerging as the favorite given its recent ability to outsmart rivals for gas pipeline assets in recent auctions. John Barnett, a CMS spokesman, declined comment beyond saying that the company is evaluating the sale of Panhandle but it has not yet made a decision.Tim Grabinski, a MidAmerican spokesman declined to comment.

Element Re Capital Products plans to set up a European office to originate weather deals for end users. The subsidiary of XL Capital has hired Dan Tomlinson, marketing managing atWeatherXchange, to set up the London office, but will continue to trade European weather derivatives from Stamford, Conn. Tomlinson and Lynda Clemmons, president and ceo, declined comment.

Phoenix-based Pinnacle West Capital last week issued 5.7 million shares with the aim of raising around $200 million as part of a long-term funding plan for some 1,800 MW in plant construction. Alan Bunnell, spokesman, says the original plan was to fund the build-out at its unregulated unit Pinnacle West Energy because of anArizona Corporation Commission stipulation that generation assets should be transferred to the unit by year-end. However, in the fall the state regulator changed its stance and so the asset transfer will not now occur, he says.

Miller, McConville, Christen, Hutchison, & Waffel, a recently formed New York-based merchant banking boutique, has begun wooing hedge funds and distressed debt investors for capital to invest in the embattled power sector.

David Cain, a project financier at DZ Bank in London, has joined Lloyds TSB to focus on non-recourse lending to the power sector. Cain says he joined at the beginning of the month as part of a structural reorganization that will see the U.K. bank divvy up its project lending business by sector, rather than have a team of generalists focusing on all sectors. Calls to DZ were not returned.

SG has shut down the European arm of its energy and utility investment banking franchise SG Barr Devlin in a move that will see the French bank's European power coverage increasingly targeted toward its domestic Gallic market.

CDC Globeleq, a recently formed U.K. state-owned IPP charged with buying generation assets across the emerging markets, expects to make at least two acquisitions over the next year to round out its initial $300 million investment fund. The London-based company made its first two acquisitions last week when it acquired AES Kelvin Power, a coal-fired plant in South Africa, and Songas, a gas-to-electricity business in Tanzania, from AES for $116.1 million in cash and a further $212.9 million in debt.

AES's Brazilian subsidiary Eletropaulo Metropolitana Electricidade de Sao Paulo edged closer to bankruptcy last week as Fitch Ratings downgraded the utility from C to DDD for defaulting on $100 million of commercial paper. Jason Todd, an analyst at Fitch, says, "We expect they'll continue to try restructuring Eletropaulo's remaining maturities, but whether they will able to do so is questionable."

Iberdrola reportedly is looking to arrange a project loan by next summer to part finance the construction of La Laguna II, a $350 million, 500 MW gas-fired project in Durango state, Mexico. A New York project financier who has spoken to the company about its plans says the Spanish utility already has started pitching the mandate to potential lead arrangers.Javier Cervera, an Iberdrola spokesman in Madrid, was unable to provide details on the financing by press time.