UPDATE 1-Colombia sells Isagen controlling stake to Brookfield for $1.99 bln

(Updates with auction result, details)
By Julia Symmes Cobb
BOGOTA, Jan 13 (Reuters) - The Colombian government sold its
57.6 percent controlling stake in power generator Isagen
ISG.CN to Canada's Brookfield Asset Management BAMa.TO for
$1.99 billion, finance minister Mauricio Cardenas said on
Wednesday.
The stake, sold at the minimum price of 6.49 trillion
Colombian pesos, is the largest privatization in the country in
nearly a decade.
"The buyer is Brookfield Colombia Investment, part of the
Canadian investment fund Brookfield Asset Management," Cardenas
said. "The price of the sale was 4,130 pesos per share, with
which the nation will receive 6.49 trillion pesos."
The government plans to use proceeds to fund highways,
bridges and tunnels across the country, its so-called 4G
infrastructure projects.
"We are extremely pleased to grow our business in Colombia,
an attractive market with strong long-term growth fundamentals,
a highly skilled labor force and continued need for new
investment," Sachin Shah, president of Brookfield Renewable
Energy Partners, said in a statement. Brookfield valued the sale
at approximately $2.2 billion.
Brookfield has until Jan. 27 to pay for the company and take
possession of the shares, a finance ministry official said.
Chile's Colbun COL.SN withdrew from bidding on Monday, in
part because of a 21.5 percent increase in the minimum price,
the company said.
Members of the Isagen's workers union and left-wing
political parties gathered outside the headquarters of the
Bogota stock exchange, where the results were announced, to
protest the sale.
The sale of Isagen, which operates seven power plants across
the country, has been suspended at least twice because of legal
challenges. A last-minute appeal by a left-wing senator to halt
the auction was rejected late on Tuesday.
Brookfield, which has around $225 billion of assets under
management, set up a $400 million fund to invest in Colombian
infrastructure assets in 2009.
It acquired Transelec, the largest electricity transmission
system in Chile in 2006. It 2011, it purchased an electrical
distribution business in Colombia and, in 2012 and 2013, it
bought toll road networks in Brazil and Chile.
($1 = 3,246.51 Colombian pesos)