By Yantoultra Ngui

SINGAPORE, March 8 (Reuters) - Indonesia's Indosat

Ooredoo Hutchison (IOH) is set to begin a process to

sell a minority stake in its fibre business as early as March,

in a deal that could value the asset at over $1 billion, said

two people with knowledge of the matter.

The sale would come after IOH received interest from global

infrastructure and financial investors as well as strategic

firms keen to partner with the company to further expand its

fibre optic telecommunications business, one of the people said.

The Jakarta-listed company has not decided on the stake size

and could decide against launching the sale process depending on

market conditions, the person said.

IOH has hired Citigroup ( C/PN ) to run the sale, said both

people, declining to be identified as the matter was private.

IOH declined to comment on the matter, saying it would

disclose every corporate action to authorities in accordance

with applicable rules and regulations.

Citigroup ( C/PN ) declined to comment.

The potential sale comes amid growing global investor

interest in digital infrastructure assets in Southeast Asia, a

region the Asian Development Bank projects will grow 4.7% this

year with the biggest economy, Indonesia, growing 5%.

Larger peer Telkom Indonesia is likely to sell a

stake in its data centre business in the second half of this

year, a top executive at the firm told Reuters in February.

In September, global investment firm KKR & Co ( KKR )

acquired 20% of Singapore Telecommunications' regional

data centre business for S$1.1 billion ($825.39 million).

Headquartered in Jakarta, IOH is Indonesia's second-largest

mobile telecom company with a customer base of 98.8 million, its

website showed.

Its revenue rose 9.6% in 2023 from the year earlier to 51.23

trillion rupiah ($3.29 billion) on strong performance across all

business units, its financial statements showed.

Net profit however fell 4.6% to 4.5 trillion rupiah mainly

due reduction in one-off gains and higher costs related to

depreciation and amortization as well as marketing expenses.

IOH was formed in 2022 via the $6 billion merger of PT

Indosat Tbk and PT Hutchison 3 Indonesia. It is jointly

controlled by Ooredoo Group and CK Hutchison Holdings ( CKHUF ),

its website showed.

($1 = 15,585.0000 rupiah)

($1 = 1.3327 Singapore dollars)