Toshiba Corp is in talks with Canada’s Brookfield Asset Management for the potential sale of its U.K. nuclear unit NuGen, a source familiar with the matter said on Tuesday.
Brookfield has emerged as one of several new candidates since Korea Electric Power Corp (KEPCO) lost its preferred bidder status in July, said the source, who declined to be identified as the talks are private.
The talks, first reported by the Financial Times, are at an early stage, the source said.
Brookfield declined to comment.
A Toshiba spokesman said the company “continues to consider additional options, including sale of its shares in NuGen to KEPCO.”
“We are carefully monitoring the situation, in consultation with stakeholders, including the U.K. government,” he added.
The NuGen project in Moorside, northwest England, was expected to provide around 7 percent of Britain’s electricity, but faced setbacks after Toshiba’s nuclear arm Westinghouse Electric Co LLC went bankrupt last year.
NuGen said last week it has cut the team working on its project, to fewer than 40 people from more than 100 as a sale of the project is taking longer than expected.
Update: Earlier this year, Brookfield’s private equity group acquired Westinghouse from Toshiba for US$4.6 billion.
The deal was done by Brookfield Capital Partners IV, which raised US$4 billion in 2016.
(Reporting by Makiko Yamazaki in Tokyo, Manas Mishra in Bengaluru; Editing by Gopakumar Warrier and Sherry Jacob-Phillips)
(This story has been edited by Kirk Falconer, editor of PE Hub Canada)
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