UPDATE 1-LUKOIL affiliate offers 0.035 rbls for TGK-8 shares
(Adds buyout deadline, details, background)
MOSCOW, Jan 10 (Reuters) - Russian investment firm Capital, linked to managers of oil major LUKOIL (LKOH.MM), has offered to buy out shares of power producer TGK-8 TGKH.MM for 0.035 roubles each, it said on Thursday.
TGK-8 shareholders have until Jan. 25 to accept the offer, pitched at a 3.5 percent premium to the current market price of 0.0338 roubles.
Capital, which made the announcement in the Vedomosti business daily, is part of IFD Capital financial group, which owns some 70 percent of TGK-8 and was legally obliged to make the buyout offer after acquiring the firm for $1.7 billion in October.
The main beneficiaries of IFD Capital are LUKOIL Vice President Leonid Fedun and President Vagit Alekperov, who made their first major foray into the Russian electricity sector with the purchase of TGK-8.
With 3.6 gigawatts of generating capacity and 18 power stations, TGK-8, or Territorial Generating Company No.8, provides electricity and heat to six southern regions, where LUKOIL, Russia's No.2 oil firm, has big expansion plans.
TGK-8 also services the Black Sea resort of Sochi, the site of the 2014 Winter Olympics, which are expected to boost demand for power in the region for years to come.
These factors made TGK-8 one of the more attractive of the 20 major generating companies being sold off by Russia's former electricity monopoly, Unified Energy System (UES) EESR.MM, as part of a sector-wide reform.
The reforms, to be completed by July 1, seek to raise investment for an overhaul of the electricity system and introduce a competitive market for power. (Reporting by Simon Shuster; Editing by David Holmes)
