By Anjuli Davies and Freya Berry
LONDON, Dec 4 (Reuters) - Bidders including Borealis,Macquarie and Cheung Kong Infrastructure Holdings (CKI) arelining up multi-billion dollar bids for Fortum's Swedish power grid ahead of a mid-December deadline, sourcesfamiliar with the matter told Reuters.
Finland's state-controlled utility Fortum is selling itsSwedish power grid, which is seen fetching around 6 billioneuros ($7.4 billion), as part of a trend among European energyfirms to split off their distribution networks to cut debt andfocus on power generation and renewable energy.
Around four or five consortia of investors are forming tosubmit offers for the assets, with indicative bids duemid-December, the sources said, speaking on condition ofanonymity because the matter is private.
Keen on regulated energy assets' predictable cash streams,infrastructure investors such as Macquarie ; ChineseState Grid; CKI, an investment entity controlled by Hong Kongbillionaire Li Ka-Shing; and Borealis, the infrastructureinvestment arm of Canadian pension fund OMERS, have beensnapping up power and gas grids across Europe in recent years.
In October, Reuters reported that Fortum had launched thesale process, with Borealis teaming up with Swedish pensionfunds AP1, AP3 and Folksam to bid, and private equity firm 3i's infrastructure fund joining the private equity arm ofGoldman Sachs to make an offer.
"A lot of the bidders have been studying this for a longtime," said one of the sources.
"It's a very competitive process because there are so fewlarge deals out there at the moment."
Fortum sold its Finnish grid to a consortium of investorsled by First State Investments and Borealis Infrastructure for2.55 billion euros in December 2013. It also divested itssmaller Norwegian electricity distribution business in April.
Fortum declined to comment. All of the prospective bidderseither declined to comment or could not immediately be reachedfor comment.
(1 US dollar = 0.8125 euro) (Additional reporting by Arno Schuetze in Frankfurt; Editing byMark Potter)
3i Group (III)