PSALM vice president for asset management and electricity trading Froilan A. Tampinco disclosed the groups which submitted letters of interest (LOI) are a mix of three foreign firms and two local energy firms.

He said the prospective foreign investors comprise of two American firms and one Asian; to which one of them is an investment firm and the two are power utilities.

The local firms were among the potential bidders for Masinloc in the past.

While he refused to name the interested parties; Tampinco indicated that they are expecting additional companies firming up interest in the coming weeks as they move closer to pre-qualification stage.

As this developed, it was gathered from highly reliable sources that the horde of potential buyers of the Masinloc plant may include US firms AES Corporation; investment firm Ashmore which is a major stakeholder of Prisma Energy; One Energy which is a joint venture of Mitsubishi Corporation and China Light and Power; investment firms Avenue Capital; AIG; Korea Electric Power Corporation; and local firms First Gen Corporation; Trans-Asia Power and Aboitiz Power.

It was not specified, however, which among these investor-groups that previously made inquiries with PSALM already bought the bid documents.

Despite the initial enthusiasm shown by investors, PSALM officials said they are not inclined to just sit back and wait for the bidding time; especially since there are still major concerns awaiting to be resolved, including the transition supply contract (TSC) that will be assigned by National Power Corporation (NPC) to the Masinloc facility.

PSALM already advanced words that it wants to negotiate for a power supply agreement that will cover up to 70 percent of the running capacity of Masinloc at the time of its divestment.

The tender notice specified that prospective bidders will be given from March 29 to July 19 to undertake due diligence activities. The pre-bid conference is slated May 8 while the opening of bids will be on July 26 this year.

Apart from TSC concerns, PSALM is also reviewing the reserve price for the Masinloc plant as this has been one of the most contentious issue raised when the asset was first bid out in 2004.