Syarikat Pengeluar Air Sungai Selangor Sdn Bhd (Splash), a 40 percent associate company of Gamuda Bhd, has made a revised offer to the federal and Selangor governments with regard to the takeover of the water services industry in Selangor.

The revised offer was realigned to respond to the federal government's view that Splash's earlier offer of March 24, 2010, was not in line with the government's policy that operators should be "asset light".

The company said the realigned offer would meet the spirit of the Water Services Industry Act, 2006 (WSIA), and the federal government's "asset light" policy, Gamuda said in a filing to Bursa Malaysia today.

Meanwhile, the water assets in Selangor are parked under concessionaires Puncak Niaga (M) Sdn Bhd and Syarikat Bekalan Air Selangor Sdn Bhd (Syabas), both which are controlled by Puncak Niaga Holdings Bhd, as well as Splash and Konsortium Abass Sdn Bhd.

The statement said Pengurusan Aset Air Bhd (PAAB) which is wholly-owned by Minister of Finance Inc, had made an estimated aggregate offer of RM8.18 billion to all the water players in the Selangor state last month.

In the realigned offer, Splash has offered to "top up" PAAB's offer to RM10.75 billion to all the water operators in the Selangor state, that is, an additional offer of RM2.57 billion or a top up of 24 percent.

The statement said PAAB would own and carry all the water assets on their books and lease the assets to Splash to enable the latter to operate as the operation and maintenance operator under a 30-year concession/licence.

Splash will pay PAAB lease rentals of six percent per annum with an annual escalation of 2.5 percent, the same rate as charged by PAAB to the operating entities in other states.

Apart from the realignment, all the terms and conditions of Splash's earlier offer remain the same and unchanged, including the benefit of low consumer tariffs.

- Bernama