Bank of China overseas branches provides $150 million loan to SinoSing Power to acquire 100% stake in Tuas Power Ltd. from Temesak (Linked to Record ID#94620, #94624 and #111018)

Project narrative

In June 2007, Temasek, Singaporean state-owned investment firm, decided to sell its subsidiary Tuas Power to a foreign entity to increase competitiveness. Temasek auctioned the acquisition of Tuas Power on the market. In early 2008, Huaneng International, a Hong-Kong publicly listed subsidiary of China’s Huaneng Group, Japan’s Marubeni Corporation and Malaysia’s TanjongPlc emerged as the main competitors. However, after realizing the legal obligations to reveal the acquisition and bureucratic burdens, Huaneng International decided to transfer the responsiblity to the parent group Huaneng Grpup for the acquisition. For the acquisition, Huaneng Group created SinoSing Power, a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV). On March 17, 2008, Huaneng Group won the bid and signed an agreement to acquire Singapore's Tuas Power Ltd. for SGD 4.24 billion (approximately USD 3.04 billion). As Tuas Power is a subsidiary of SinoSing Power, Huaneng Group acquired 100% of issued shares of SinoSing Power. Subsequently, on April 29, 2008, Huaneng Power International, Inc. (HPI) entered into an agreement with Huaneng Group to acquire from Huaneng Group a 100% ownership stake in SinoSing Power, a Singaporean utility company that owned a 100% share in Tuas Power, Ltd. Initially, Huaneng planned to have the following financing structure: (1) a $1.4 billion USD syndicate bridge loan provided by Lehman Brothers and other banks (including Crédit Agricole, BNP Paribas, DBS Group, and Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation); (2) Huaneng’s own capital of $197 million USD and China Eximbank’s $788 million USD with a maturity of 15 years (Record ID#94620); and (3) Bank of China’s $600 million USD loan with a maturity of 5 years. Bank of China (Hong Hong) contributed $50 million USD (Record ID#94624), Bank of China (Singapore) contributed $150 million USD (Record ID#111018) and other unknown subsidiaries contributed $400 million USD (Record ID#111019). A few months later, due to the global financial crisis, Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy and could no longer provide a loan. Then, in June 2008, HPI successfully acquired a 100% equity stake in SinoSing Power from China Huaneng Group, thereby obtaining a 100% equity stake in Tuas Power Ltd.