COMMERCIAL IN CONFIDENCE
B
MEETING WITH SCHRODER AND CHARTERED BANK, ON TUESDAY JUNE 14 AT 10.30am
Mr Gemmill and I met Mr Bishoff and Mr Turnbull (Schroder and Chartered). Ir Barrett (Goneral Manager, CLP) was also present.
In discussion the following points were made:
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In deciding whether the British approach was acceptable, the company was bound to be guided principally by the prospective cost per kilowatt of installed capacity. CLP had made approaches to purchasing authorities in a number of countries which had recently placed orders
for power station. They had received a considerable volume of information which gave them some measure of "competitive" and "suicidal" prices around the world. The State of Victoria appears to have gone much
further than any of its counterparts. Officials provided CLP with details of the bids put in by the four companies (including Parsons and GEC) who have been short-listed for the contract. The material provided by Victoria included a statement of the comparative cost per kilowatt of installed capacity of the four companies on the short-list.7
Schroder and Chartered, as advisers to CLP/PEPCO, were very interested in the suggestion that the buyer credit arrangement might be denominated in Hong Kong dollars. They confirmed the advice which Mr Gemmill had obtained separately from the Hong Kong that the proposal appeared practicable;
We pointed out that ECGD was now looking for
a five year period of credit but we did not rule out the possibility of an 8 year period from the date of commissioning. The Hong Kong representatives said that they hoped we would consider the possibility of a 10 year maximum period from the date of commissioning as this has been provided in respect of the mass transit system (in which they had also been involved). They emphasised that there were no circumstances in which they would wish to go beyond a 10 year period from the date of commissioning.
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