Enel, owner of Endesa, completes acquisition of 3 Conduit hydro plants in Mexico - all three yield European carbon reduction credits.

Dutch holding Enel Investment, wholly owned by Italian power company Enel, has completed the US$156mn acquisition of three hydroelectric plants in Mexican states Jalisco, Michoacán, and Guerrero, Enel said in a statement.

The Trojes, Chilatán, and El Gallo plants were developed as greenfield projects from 2001-07 and have total capacity of 52MW.

All three are downstream from pre-existing irrigation dams and yield carbon reduction credits.

Enel acquired the plants through its purchase of 100% of Inelec shares from New York-based Conduit Capital Partners' Latin Power II fund and local consortium Grupo Qualita/Comexhidro.

The Latin Power II fund held a 70% stake in Inelec. BNP Paribas acted as exclusive financial advisor to Conduit and its local partners, according to a Conduit statement.

"Latin Power II is now nine years old, which is a good long life for a private equity fund. But more importantly, we have seen over the last two years a very significant increase in the value of operating assets in Latin America and therefore felt it was an appropriate time for harvest," Conduit chairman Scott Swensen told BNamericas.

Once Conduit has collected monies in escrow, the internal rate of returns for this particular asset will be 42% and the sale worth 4.9 times invested capital, Swensen said.

Swensen added Conduit is in the process of selling off all assets held by its Latin Power I and II funds.

Annual Ebitda generated by the three plants is expected to reach roughly US$20mn, according to the Enel statement.

The plants are attractive because of Mexico's growth in generation demand of some 2.5GW/y and the potential for Mexico to connect to the Central American power market, according to Enel.

Enel and its affiliates have total generation capacity of more than 600MW in Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Chile and Brazil.

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