SSE Chief Executive Ian Marchant told reporters on the sidelines of the Edison Electric Institute Conference in London his company was bidding with the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan and Canadian fund manager Borealis Infrastructure Management. Marchant said SSE plans to invest between 300 million pounds and 500 million pounds cash in its bid for the Scotland and south of England gas distribution zones and that, between them, his partners would invest a similar amount. Marchant said he expected his consortium's bid to involve between 20 and 30 percent equity, far more than many other bidders who have been working on structures involving around 85 percent debt. "I don't believe that you can get that much leverage in these things," Marchant said. However, if the rating agencies would allow higher leverage, he said he might increase the leverage in his bid. In his address to the conference, Marchant criticised the market for undervaluing his company's dividend policy. "I do struggle to understand why we trade at a yield premium (to other utilities)... I'm not sure the market is getting the income story right," he said. The yield on a stock with a given dividend rises as its share price falls and a stock trading a yield premium to its peers is effectively relatively undervalued. PIN//Reuters