US electrical infrastructure contractor and developer Symbion has acquired a 67% stake in South African power transmission and distribution contractor EJ Power, which has been rebranded as Symbion PNC and will be headquartered in Johannesburg.

Prior to the purchase, EJ Power had been experiencing financial difficulties. But its creditors voted last month to support a business-rescue plan on learning of Symbion’s interest in the company.

The Washington DC-based company is taking over EJ Power’s liabilities and is providing a R20-million loan to help it pay creditors and fund current operations.

Symbion Power CEO Paul Hinks tells Engineering News that creditors will be repaid in full over a three-year period and that the US group is willing to offer further support should it be required.

EJ Power’s Russell Broadhead will head the new company and South Africans will retain a 33% interest through an entity known as Power Network Contractors.

Johannesburg has been earmarked to become Symbion’s hub for contracting activities in Africa, while Nigeria will act as the African hub for its independent power producer (IPP) developments.

Best known for its involvement in US-government-backed infrastructure projects in Iraq and Afghanistan, Symbion is already active as an IPP and as a contractor in Nigeria and Tanzania.

Symbion is in the process of acquiring a 976 MW power station in Nigeria and is pursuing other greenfield prospects in the country. It also has three power stations in Tanzania and is developing a 400 MW gas-fired power plant and a 650 km transmission line in the southern region of the country in partnership with State-owned utility Tanesco.
Revenues are currently evenly split between contracting and IPP activities, but Hinks expects IPP-related revenues to outpace those of contracting in the coming years.

It is pursuing a portfolio of opportunities inside and outside Africa and will also consider South African IPP prospects as the market liberalises.

The formation of Symbion PNC is aligned to its current strategy of moving away from US-funded projects towards pursuing private and development-funded power-market opportunities.

The South African acquisition bolsters the group’s on-the-ground transmission and distribution contracting capacity, which it aims to deploy on its own expanding IPP project portfolio, as well as sell to third parties.

Symbion PNC, which will be headed by EJ Power’s Russell Broadhead, has implemented electrical transmission and distribution contracts for Eskom, municipalities and mining companies. It has also completed projects in Botswana and Namibia.

“We will come out of business rescue this year, possibly within the next six months, and we are optimistic that we are going to grow not only in South Africa, but in Southern Africa and further north,” Broadhead says.

The business has a current order book of nearly R100-million, including R45-million in contracts secured while still in business rescue.

It also has ambitions to introduce Symbion’s training model locally, once the business has been stabilised.

The group claims to have trained thousands of people in Iraq and Afghanistan, and in Tanzania it has established a training school for transmission line workers.

The group has established a partnership with the Northwest Lineman College, of Idaho, in the US, which trains 2 000 power delivery workers yearly.

In the medium term, Symbion is keen to facili- tate the development of a Northwest Lineman College campus in South Africa.