Korea Electric to Buy Philippine Plant Stake From BG

Korea Electric Power Corp. (015760), the country’s biggest electricity producer, agreed to buy a stake in a Philippine power plant from BG Group Plc for $400 million.

Korea Electric beat other global companies to acquire the 40 percent stake, the Seoul-based utility said in an e-mailed statement today. The stake purchase in an overseas power plant is a first for a South Korean company, Korea Electric said.

The state-run utility and its units are venturing overseas including the Middle East and Southeast Asia to diversify revenue sources and counter slower growth in domestic sales. BG Group Plc (BG/), the U.K.’s third-largest oil and gas company, has been selling its power-generating assets this year to focus on projects in Brazil, Australia and the U.S.

BG agreed in July to sell its interest in Premier Power Ltd. to AES Corp. and in April divested its 50 percent stake in Seabank Power Ltd. for about $320 million to Cheung Kong Infrastructure Holdings Ltd.

The 1,500 megawatt gas-fired plant in the Philippines supplies electricity to the nation’s main island of Luzon and generated $1 billion in revenue last year, according to Korea Electric Power. First Philippines Holding Co. owns the rest of the facility.

In the Philippines, Korea Electric is currently operating plants with capacity totaling 2,218 megawatts, or 10 percent of the country’s power generating market.

To contact the reporter on this story: Shinhye Kang in Seoul at skang24@bloomberg.net; Eduard Gismatullin in London at egismatullin@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Amit Prakash at aprakash1@bloomberg.net.