Malaysian Billionaire Francis Yeoh’s YTL Power Buys Singapore Gas-Fired Plant For $196.5 Million

YTL Power International—controlled by Malaysian tycoon Francis Yeoh and his siblings—has completed the acquisition of a gas-fired power plant that was built by bankrupt water treatment firm Hyflux.

The Malaysian utility company said Wednesday that its Singapore-based unit YTL PowerSeraya paid S$270 million ($196.5 million) to acquire the 396-megawatt combined cycle gas turbine power plant from Tuaspring, less than the original consideration of S$331.45 million. YTL didn’t elaborate on how the payment was reduced.

“Tuaspring’s combined cycle power station complements the group’s existing power generation assets in Singapore, creating significant synergies across our portfolio of utility businesses,” Yeoh Seok Hong, managing director of YTL Power, said in a statement. “The Tuaspring plant is one of the most technologically advanced assets on Singapore’s power generation grid and this was a sound opportunity to acquire a well-structured, operating asset with a proven operational track record, enabling us to consolidate our power generation capacity in Singapore.”

The acquisition of the Tuaspring power plant will boost YTL Power’s presence in the Asian financial hub where it has a licensed electricity generating capacity of up to 3,100 megawatts. The power plant—which was part of the desalination plant built in 2013 by Hyflux in Tuas in western Singapore near the border to Malaysia—was commissioned in 2016, two years before Hyflux went into bankruptcy. In 2019, creditors led by Maybank took over the power plant, while the Singapore government assumed operations of the desalination facility.

YTL Power—which owns power generating assets across Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore—has been investing in renewable energy projects which includes a solar farm in the southern Malaysian state of Johor, located about 60 kilometers north of Singapore. It also operates a water utility in the U.K. and holds a controlling interest in Malaysian mobile carrier Yes.

Founded in 1993 as one of Malaysia’s independent power producers, YTL Power is part of YTL Corp., which was established by Francis Yeoh’s late father Yeoh Tiong Lay more than six decades ago. The younger Yeoh helms the family’s global business empire, which has interests in cement, utilities, properties and hotels, including the Ritz Carlton in Kuala Lumpur. With a net worth of $1.25 billion, which he shares with his siblings, Yeoh, 67, was ranked No. 17 on the list of Malaysia’s 50 Richest that was published in June last year.