By Dinesh Nair and Eveline Danubrata
DUBAI/SINGAPORE, June 18 (Reuters) - HSBC Holdings has been appointed to manage a public share offer of a jointventure firm that owns and operates a $1 billion water and powerproject in Oman, two banking sources said on Tuesday.
Singapore's Sembcorp Utilities, a unit of SembcorpIndustries, has a 60 percent stake in the Sembcorp Salalah Powerand Water Company. Oman Investment Corp owns 35 percent andInstrata Capital 5 percent in the joint venture.
Sembcorp said in June that it planned an initial publicoffering of the joint venture firm this year.
The joint venture firm must offload at least 35 percent ofits capital through an IPO on the Muscat bourse as part of amandatory requirement in the Gulf state which requires privatesector utilities to list shares locally.
A spokesman for the joint venture firm declined to comment.
The banking sources, who did not provide details on thefirm's capital, spoke on condition of anonymity as the matter isnot public. HSBC declined to comment.
The Salalah Independent Water and Power Plant consists of agas-fired combined cycle power plant with a gross capacity of490 megawatts and a seawater desalination plant with a totalwater production capacity of 69,000 cubic metres per day,according to its website.
The facility provides power and drinking water under a15-year power and water purchase agreement to the Oman Power andWater Procurement Co, a wholly-owned subsidiary of theGovernment of Oman.
British bank HSBC has a banking arm in Oman in which it ownsa 51 percent stake.