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Sembcorp, YTL Said to Eye Pursuing $1.1 Billion Hyflux Plant

Sembcorp, YTL Said to Eye Pursuing $1.1 Billion Hyflux Plant

(Bloomberg) -- Sembcorp Industries Ltd. and Keppel Corp. are among parties planning to study bids for Hyflux Ltd.’s biggest asset, according to people with knowledge of the matter, in a sale that’s key to helping the cash-strapped company get back on its feet.

Hyflux’s Tuaspring project, which includes Southeast Asia’s biggest desalination plant, has also drawn interest from Malaysian generator YTL Power International Bhd., the people said, asking not to be named as the process is private. The asset had a book value of S$1.47 billion ($1.1 billion) at the end of March, according to Hyflux exchange filings.

Hyflux had also reached out to billionaire Anthoni Salim’s Metro Pacific Investments Corp. to gauge its interest, the people said.

Suitors would need approval from the Public Utilities Board, which regulates the Singapore water supply, before receiving more details of Tuaspring’s business operations, according to the people. More information, including the the price Tuaspring receives for the water it sells to PUB, will be provided to bidders who get approval, the people said.

Saddled with S$2.95 billion of liabilities, Hyflux started a court-supervised reorganization process in May and obtained a six-month debt moratorium in the latest casualty among overstretched Singapore companies. The water treatment firm is led by founder Olivia Lum, who was a poster child for Singapore entrepreneurs before Hyflux’s finances were strained by an ill-timed entry into the energy business.

The Tuaspring project combines a desalination plant and a gas turbine power plant. It has a designed capacity of 318,500 cubic meters per day of desalinated water and 411 megawatts of power, according to its website.

Any deal would add to the $59.6 billion of acquisitions announced in Southeast Asia this year, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Hyflux expects to get binding bids for Tuaspring by Oct. 1, Lum said last month. The company agreed with main creditor Malayan Banking Bhd. to execute a binding agreement with a successful bidder by Oct. 15, in return for the lender refraining from starting enforcement proceedings.

Rescue Financing

Lum said last month there are eight interested parties for Tuaspring. Bids for the project shouldn’t be “so unreasonably low” that the firm can’t pay back its stakeholders, she said at the time.

A representative for Hyflux said the company is unable to comment, as the Tuaspring divestment process is ongoing. Sembcorp said by email that from time to time, the company may evaluate different opportunities. There’s no assurance any such discussions will lead to a transaction, according to Sembcorp. Keppel said in a statement that it’s always evaluating opportunities where it is able to grow its businesses.

YTL Power Managing Director Yeoh Seok Hong couldn’t immediately be reached by phone and didn’t respond to emailed queries. “We were offered to take a look, but we have no details as of now,” Metro Pacific President Joey Lim said in response to Bloomberg queries.

Asset sales are key to Hyflux’s efforts to trim its debt load while it also seeks rescue financing for working capital. At the end of March, it had S$500 million of perpetual securities, S$400 million of preference shares and S$803 million of unsecured loans and bonds among its liabilities, an exchange filing shows.

--With assistance from Cecilia Yap, Kyunghee Park, Clarissa Batino, Andrea Tan and David Yong.

To contact the reporters on this story: Joyce Koh in Singapore at jkoh38@bloomberg.net;Elffie Chew in Kuala Lumpur at echew16@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Ben Scent at bscent@bloomberg.net, Timothy Sifert

©2018 Bloomberg L.P.