French energy firm EDF plans to invite first-round bids for its UK electricity distribution network in mid-January next year, with binding bids due in by the end of the first quarter of 2010.
The £4bn sale of the three distributor network operators is to be launched in early December.
Scottish and Southern Energy has formed a consortium with Canadian infrastructure company Borealis, and has hired credit Suisse and RBC Capital Markets to act as advisers on the sale.
Other potential bidders include the Canadian Pension Plan, which has brought in Goldman Sachs to advise, and National Grid, thought to have hired Morgan Stanley.
The distribution network for sale transmits power to about 8m homes in East and South East England. EDF has been preparing to sell the assets inherited in its purchase of British Energy for several months.
EDF was given the go-ahead by the European Union competition authorities to acquire British Energy in December 2008.
The €15bn takeover was subject to conditions, put in place to ensure that there would be room for competition. At the time, EDF agreed to sell a gas-fired power station that it owns and a coal-fired plant owned by British Energy.
