Visa's Brazil unit to sell shares in IPO by June

BRASILIA, Feb 26 (Reuters) - VisaNet Brasil, controlled in part by Visa Inc, plans to sell shares in an initial public offering in the first half of 2008, one of the company's main shareholders said on Tuesday.

The Brazilian sale would take place shortly after the initial public offering of Visa in New York, said Aldo Mendes, chief financial officer of Banco do Brasil (BBAS3.SA: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), Latin America's largest bank by assets and one of VisaNet's main shareholders.

VisaNet is controlled by Bradesco (BBDC4.SA: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), Banco do Brasil, ABN Amro's Brazilian unit and Visa International. Visa on Monday filed to sell as much as $18.8 billion in an IPO, the largest ever in the United States.

In Brazil, VisaNet's main rival Redecard (RDCD3.SA: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) sold about 4 billion reais ($2.37 billion) in stock in July 2007, with most of the funds going to banks including Citigroup (C.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), Itau (ITAU4.SA: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and Unibanco (UBBR11.SA: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz). ($1 = 1.686 Brazilian reais) (Reporting by Isabel Versiani, Writing by Elzio Barreto, Editing by Leslie Gevirtz)