Nearly 100 people participated in a compulsory briefing session on Friday for those wishing to bid to become the transaction adviser to the National Treasury in relation to the establishment of a fully independent State-owned Transmission System Operator (TSO), which would own the transmission assets currently falling under an Eskom subsidiary.

A request for proposals (RFP) in relation to the appointment has been issued by the Infrastructure Finance and Implementation Support Agency (IFISA), which is housed at the Development Bank of Southern Africa, and a bid submission deadline of 23:55 on September 30 has been set.

The adviser will be expected to provide integrated financial, legal and tax advisory services to structure and execute the transaction, whereby Eskom’s transmission business will be unbundled to form a new State-owned company.

A tentative deadline of December 31, 2027, is outlined in the RFP for the completion of the transaction, but the IFISA officials who briefed potential bidders during a virtual session, acknowledged that the timeframe was unlikely to be met.

A timetable included in the RFP that outlined the various deliverables for the transaction adviser points to the work being completed only after the end of next year, with much hinging on the appointment date, which is uncertain.

In all, seven deliverables are outlined, including an indication that the transaction adviser should hand over a final integrated transaction report one year from the date of the appointment, with the transaction slated to close two months later.

Much emphasis was given during the briefing to proving, through the bid submission, that the members of the transaction advisory team, as well as the bidding company or consortium, had the qualifications and experience to deliver on the project.

Besides having an advanced post-graduate qualification in accounting, finance, economics, commerce, law or business management, the lead adviser would need to demonstrate that she or he had at least 15 years of experience in leading comparable corporate restructuring activities.

The company or consortium, meanwhile, would need to prove that it had participated as a lead adviser in at least three major corporate restructuring, demerger, carve-out or unbundling transactions, preferably in the electricity sector.

In addition, at least two of the three transactions should have exceeded a R50-billion enterprise, transaction or asset value.

IFISA also used the briefing to indicate that it had no intention of postponing the bid submission deadline of September 30 and to confirm that those who had not participated would not be eligible to bid.

It also reaffirmed that there was no intention to revisit the policy decision to establish the TSO with ownership and control of the transmission assets.

In addition, the principle that the restructuring be implemented in a way that ensured that Eskom was not financially worse off and that the new TSO itself was financially sustainable, was reiterated.