Seven bids collected in Turkey's power grids sell-off

The sell-off agency said it had received five bids for the central Anatolian region's Meram electricity grid and two bids for the power grid covering Aras in eastern Anatolia.

No foreign companies submitted bids by the Monday deadline and no major Turkish companies bid.

The two power grids, particularly the Aras grid, serve few customers and need significant infrastructural investment.

The Privatization Administration had said earlier that 16 interested firms met the prequalification criteria for the Meram tender and seven firms fulfilled the criteria for the Aras tender.

This is Turkey’s second sell-off in 2008, in a major liberalization drive of energy contracts and infrastructure.

In the first sell-off, a consortium of Czech power firm CEZ and Turkish Akenerji made the top bid of $600 million for Turkey's Sakarya power grid, while Turkey’s Sabanci Holding and Austria's Verbund were awarded the Ankara region grid with a bid of $1.225 billion.