AES expands projects in Brazil and plans growing in distribution
Valor Econômico
The official position until last year was buying the interest of the BNDESPar in Brasiliana (the holding that gathers AES Tietê and Eletropaulo) and carrying out the obligatory expansion of Tietê in the State of São Paulo. And that would already require some billions of Reais. That has changed. It has become much bolder, defying all large groups that have stood out lately as purchasers of Eletropaulo and Tietê. The President of AES Brasil, Britaldo Soares, is now talking about buying other distributors outside the umbrella of Brasiliana, besides planning to grow in hydroelectric and thermoelectric generation.
If that is for real, only time will tell. But Soares makes all these statements only two months after the Chinese Sovereign Fund landed in the AES Corp, buying 15% of the shares of the company by US$ 2 billion. This Fund manages a US$ 300 billion capital, and put AES at a comfortable situation after a financial crisis. Soares shows great confidence when saying the page was turned and that now it is time to grow. He refers to the agreement concerning the debt the company still had with the BNDES which settled with the sale of shares it held in Cemig to Andrade Gutierrez, which assumed the R$ 2.1 billion (US$ 1.15 billion) debt. But the growth plans have not been discussed with the Government.
In distribution AES intends to grow outside the Brasiliana holding, unless the BNDES (National Development Bank) decides to sell its interest and leaves the partnership entered into in one of the settlement of accounts made with the Americans. But in generation, the idea is to use AES Tietê, which has got a Bank as partner, and currently generates cash and distributes 100% of dividends since it has no investments and its indebtedness is low. "Tiete has the capacity to double its size", says Britaldo. The generation company has power plants capable of generating 2.7 thousand megawatts (MW).