Eurotunnel may buy UK high-speed rail

PARIS (Reuters) - Groupe Eurotunnel (GETP.PA), the operator of the Channel tunnel, is looking for partners to buy the UK's only high speed line, its Chairman and Chief Executive Jacques Gounon said on French radio BFM on Wednesday.

High Speed One, which carries trains at up to 186 mph between London St Pancras station and the Channel Tunnel, was part of the 16 billion pound asset sales unveiled by Prime Minister Gordon Brown earlier this month.

"It's in our backyard and we are obviously willing to show our interest," Gounon told BFM. "It could be within reach of Eurotunnel alone, but I believe it is smarter to do it with solid partners. I'm looking for these partnerships."

He added that different price tags were being mentioned for the 68 miles of track operated by London & Continental Railways (LCR), which the government bought in June.

"Depending on what will effectively be sold by the British government, we estimate it could be between 1.5 billion pounds to 2 billion pounds," he said.

Eurotunnel separately announced on Tuesday the early redemption of NRS I T3 convertible bonds, the last phase in the group's financial restructuring started in 2007.

Shares in Eurotunnel were up 1.7 percent by 12:24 p.m. British time, after gaining as much as 6.4 percent earlier on Wednesday. The stock has gained more than 78 percent since January, giving the company a market value of 2.74 billion euros (2.5 billion pounds).

In September, Goldman Sachs Infrastructure Partners, a subsidiary of investment bank Goldman Sachs Group (GS.N), acquired 21.1 percent of Eurotunnel's capital, becoming the group's biggest shareholder.

(Reporting by Michel Rose and Gilles Guillaume; Editing by David Holmes)