Marubeni Corporation from Japan has announced that it has signed a strategic partnership with GDF SUEZ (GDFS) to acquire 50% of National Power International Holdings B.V. which holds GDFS's asset portfolio of thermal and renewable power assets in Portugal.

Terms of the sale weren't disclosed. The assets in Portugal have a total valuation of about 2.5 billion euros ($3.3 billion). The sale will result in a total reduction of 900 million euros in GDF Suez's net debt, according to Bloomberg.

This portfolio consists of many generation types including natural gas-fired combined cycle power plant, coal-fired power plant, wind generation, small hydro generation and photovoltaic generation and has a capacity of around 3,300MW. This is approximately 17% of the power generation capacity in Portugal and is therefore a vital part of the basic power infrastructure in the country. Marubeni will be managing the power plants in conjunction with GDFS and will contribute to Portugal by providing seamless and efficient operation of the power plants.

This acquisition will be Marubeni's full-fledged entry into the European power market. Marubeni is looking to expand on this acquisition and is looking for this to lead to more development and investment opportunities in IPP projects in the market.

Moreover, Marubeni hopes to globally expand its already established partnership with GDFS in Asia and the Middle East markets by creating this new strategic partnership in the European market.

Finally, with the acquisition of these power assets, Marubeni is the first Japanese IPP developer to achieve net generating capacity of 10,000MW.

InfraPPP announced yesterday that Marubeni Corporation has also agreed with Mainstream Renewable Power Ltd to invest a maximum of €100 million in the Irish clean energy company.