TEPCO in Talks with 5 Candidates for Capital Tie-Up

Tokyo, June 25 (Jiji Press)--Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc. is in talks with five candidates to form a capital tie-up, it was learned Thursday.

The five include major Japanese telecommunications carrier SoftBank Corp. and investment fund Japan Industrial Partners Inc., as well as U.S. investment firm Blackstone Inc., investment fund KKR and asset management firm BlackRock.

TEPCO selected the five candidates from among those who had applied by the end of March for a capital tie-up, which is a pillar of the company's new business reconstruction plan, announced in January.

Negotiations will be led by TEPCO's new chairman, Keisuke Yokoo, who took office on Thursday. Yokoo hails from the financial industry.

For TEPCO, the main purpose of a capital tie-up is to secure funds for growth investments and to reduce the financial burden of compensating for the March 2011 accident at its Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant in northeastern Japan and decommissioning the tsunami-stricken plant.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]