Leilão de transmissão mantém deságios – mas alguns elevam cautela
O leilão de concessões de transmissão de energia realizado sexta-feira na B3 parecia ocorrer quase num mundo paralelo ao caos que reinou no mercado financeiro desde as eleições. Apesar da implosão da Bolsa e do salto nos juros longos, todos os oito projetos – com um capex total estimado em R$ 8,9 bilhões – receberam ofertas de diversas empresas, e o deságio médio nas propostas foi de 50%, próximo…
The energy transmission auction held on Friday by B3 resembled a parallel universe to the chaos that gripped the financial market since the elections. Despite the market collapse and the surge in long-term interest rates, all eight projects – with an estimated capital expenditure of R$8.9 billion – received bids, and the average discount in proposals was 50%, close to the last licensing in the sector.
Some groups, however, remained cautious. AXIA Energy, the main winner of the most recent auction in July, made proposals with discounts ranging from 3% to 32% – compared to over 50% in the previous bidding. The company walked away empty-handed, as did Engie and Alupar, which took lots in the other two auctions this year. Major names in the sector such as State Grid, Taesa, and ISA Energia did not participate.
The biggest winners were Spanish-backed groups, which are traditional investors in energy transmission in Brazil. Neoenergia from Iberdrola, the construction firm Cymi, and Celeo Redes took two projects each. The Spanish Cox also took a lot, and the Portuguese EDP took one project. A bank source said the winners must have considered in their bids that the debt market would normalize in a year or two when they will need to raise long-term financing for the projects.
"If interest rates don’t fall as expected, it puts downward pressure on the returns of the projects. And that’s what has happened in the past auctions. Returns on transmission projects are compressed," said the executive. "The event was very close to the election. Short-term turbulence ends up affecting project valuations. But it affects everyone almost uniformly.
So what varies is each person's perception of risk and how that enters the assumptions used to make the bid." An executive of a company that competed in the auction explained that while transmission projects offer stable and inflation-linked revenues, making them a safe haven, the high discounts still compress return rates. Large utilities with lower cost of capital or companies with a construction arm are the most competitive.
The energy transmission transmission projects had 30-year contracts, with an entry into commercial operation between three-and-a-half years and five years. Altogether, they cover 1.8 kilometers of lines and 12,694 MVA of transformation capacity. With the decline in renewable energy investments due to oversupply, transmission business has remained one of the most active niches in the electrical sector for the past decade, attracting companies from various countries.
Written by urgent.news from Brazil Journal's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
