Hawaiian Electric sells Guam subsidiary

Advertiser Staff and News Services

Hawaiian Electric Industries Inc. announced today that it has sold its wholly-owned subsidiary, HEI Power Guam.

Terms of the sale to independent power producer Mirant were not disclosed.

Last month, HEI announced that with its international businesses losing millions of dollars and dragging down corporate profits, the company planned to close its international subsidiary and sell off the company's remaining overseas power opreations.

HEI Power Guam was formed primarily to repair, manage and operate two 25-megawatt units in Tanguisson, Guam, for the Guam Power Authority.

With the sale, Georgia-based Mirant will assume the operations and maintenance of the Tanguisson plant for the authority.

HEI, the parent company of Hawaiian Electric Co., the state's largest utility, has been reviewing its overseas operations since late last year after it lost millions of dollars on power projects in the Philippines and China.

HEI Power Corp. was founded in 1995 to diversify HEI's revenues outside of Hawaii's struggling economy with power contracts in the Asia Pacific region. In 1996, HEI Power entered a 20-year agreement with the Guam Power Authority to fix and operate the two 25-megawatt generating units.

The company has said losses from its overseas operations have been hurting HEI's profits all year.