Indonesia's Indosat launches sale of 4,000 telecom towers-sources

JAKARTA/HONG KONG, June 23 (Reuters) - Indosat , Indonesia's No.2 mobile phone provider, has launched an initial sale of 4,000 telecom towers aiming to raise more than $500 million, said three sources with direct knowledge of the plan on Thursday.

The company has invited several potential bidders, including Profesional Telekomunikasi Indonesia, a unit of Sarana Menara Telekomunikasi , Tower Bersama Infrastructure and Solusi Tunas Pratama to assess data on the towers.

Indosat will not offer the towers to its main rivals Telekomunikasi Indonesia and XL Axiata , said the sources, who declined to be identified because the sale was not public yet.

The potential bidders have been talking to banks over loans to fund the acquisition, sources said.

Bids are due by early next week.

The sale could be the first auction of around 10,000 towers that sources told Reuters last year it is considering selling.

Indosat, controlled by Qatar Telecom , declined to comment. (Reporting by Janeman Latul and Fathiya Dahrul in JAKARTA and Maggie Chen from Basis Point in HONG KONG; Editing by Neil Chatterjee)