POSCO Energy Co., a unit of South Korea’s top steelmaker POSCO, is likely to be picked as the preferred bidder for Tongyang Power Inc., whose business license for a major-scale thermal power plant had drawn interest, industry sources said Thursday.

POSCO Energy outbid other rivals with an offer of 400 billion won ($390.2 million) at the final bid for the thermal power plant operator held on Monday, they said. The amount is roughly 100 billion won more than the next highest bid, according to the sources.

The aggressive move stemmed from POSCO’s recent plan to nurture materials and energy business as its new growth engines. The steelmaker in May announced a business strategy aimed at an annual consolidated operating profit of 5 trillion won by 2016, focusing on industrial materials and clean energy sectors.

Tongyang Power has a license to operate a 2-million-kilowatt capacity thermal power plant.

Major shareholders of Tongyang Power on Tuesday requested that a Seoul court pick the POSCO energy unit as the prime bidder, said the sources. (Yonhap)