ANZ hires Morgan Stanley for Bank Panin stake-sources

SYDNEY, June 7 (Reuters) - Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ.AX) has hired Morgan Stanley to advise it on buying a controlling stake in Indonesia's PT Bank Panin (PNBN.JK) worth $1.3 billion, two sources with knowledge of the process said on Monday.

The Gunawan family, which controls 46 percent of Bank Panin, is looking to sell its stake and the hiring of an adviser reinforces expectations that ANZ, which already own 38.5 percent of the Indonesian bank, will buy the stake on offer.

A spokesman for ANZ, Australia's fourth-largest bank, declined to comment and so did Morgan Stanley.

ANZ is aggressively expanding in Asia targetting a fifth of profits from the region by 2012 from about 14 percent now.

ANZ, which has close to $5 billion in surplus capital, has identified Indonesia as a key market for its plan to turn into a regional bank.

It is investing up to $100 million in Indonesia during 2010 to complete the purchase of the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS.L) retail and commercial businesses there and to grow its branches to 28 across 11 cities and almost 1,000 full-time employees.

(Reporting by Narayanan Somasundaram & Michael Smith; Editing by Ed Davies)