THE Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) is exploring to further expand in Nigeria and explore the market in Indonesia, its top official said on Tuesday.
Meralco President Oscar Reyes said another distribution utility in Nigeria is interested to partner with the company.
“We have a technical partnership with Ibadan. Following our performance and the feedback other utilities have gotten, we had been invited by Port Harcourt Development Distribution Co. to provide the same type of technical partnership and service, basically advisory and support services to Port Harcourt,” Reyes said.
In 2013 Meralco and its partner, Lagos-based Integrated Energy Distribution and Marketing Ltd. (IEDM), took over two distribution utilities in Nigeria.
Meralco has partnered with IEDM by taking in a 5-percent stake in the consortium valued at $31,500.
IEDM is a special purpose vehicle tasked to carry on the business of electricity distribution and marketing in the emerging Nigerian electricity market. It made a bid to take over Ibadan Electricity Distribution Co. Plc. and Yola Electricity Distribution Co. Plc.
Reyes said Meralco is open to the proposal of Harcourt, which seeks for “a more extensive arrangement”.
“In the same way, similar with Ibadan Electric, they have given us the option for equity. However, this requires necessary approvals from regulatory authorities. But what we have done so far is limit ourselves to technical partnership because we want to see performance in certain commitments by the regulators, such as tariff reform, power supply and security,” Reyes said.
Meanwhile, the new partnership between Meralco’s CIS Bayad Center Inc. and Japan’s leading integrated payment solution provider Densan System Co. Ltd. could explore Indonesia as a possible market.
Densan bought a 5-percent stake in CIS Bayad Center for P228 million, Reyes said.
“We have a strong partner with fairly solid links with Japanese convenience stores that are not only present in the Philippines, but also in the region. So, we are looking forward for the opportunity of this entry into Bayad Center, being a vehicle for us to jointly look at opportunities in other countries in the region, Indonesia and other countries,” he said.
Both Densan and CIS Bayad Center, he said, are currently studying the market in Indonesia.
“We still have to form a team to prepare the road map. There’s no timeline yet, but the sooner, the better,” the Meralco official said.
This partnership shall leverage on each party’s competencies and strength with Densan providing the information-technology expertise to enable Bayad Center to tap more convenience stores as payment-fulfillment outlets.
Bayad Center offers and accepts three major services. These are remittance pay-out, business-center services and bills payment. It pioneered the concept of providing convenience when it comes to bills collection.
Densan has wide know-how in data processing, systems integration and software development that has been underpinning its information technology-based suite of payment solutions.
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