By Scott Murdoch
SYDNEY (Reuters) -Singapore Telecommunications (SingTel) is looking to sell a significant stake in its wholly owned Australian unit Optus to Canadian private equity giant Brookfield, a source with direct knowledge of the matter said on Wednesday.
Southeast Asia's largest telco operator is in advanced talks with Brookfield over the stake sale, the source said, declining to be named as the information is not public yet.
Earlier on Wednesday, SingTel dismissed a report by the Australian Financial Review that it was in advanced talks to sell Optus in a deal that could value Australia's second-largest telecommunications group for up to A$18 billion ($11.90 billion).
"There is no impending deal to offload Optus for the said sum, as reported," SingTel said in a stock exchange filing.
"That said, we regularly conduct strategic reviews of our portfolio to optimise the value of our assets and businesses and will explore all options to maximise shareholder value."
The talks to sell Optus come just a week after SingTel said it would sell shares worth S$950 million ($711 million) in India's Bharti Airtel to U.S. investment firm GQG Partners as part of its capital recycle plan as both its earnings and share performance stagnate.
The company posted a largely unchanged profit for the third quarter as weak local operations offset growth in its information technology and Australian telecom units.
Brookfield and Optus, which SingTel has owned since 2001, did not immediately respond to Reuters' email requests for comment. ($1 = 1.5129 Australian dollars)
(Reporting by Scott Murdoch, Tom Westbrook, Sameer Manekar and Rishav Chatterjee; Editing by Kim Coghill and Savio D'Souza)
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