By Yantoultra Ngui
SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Indonesia's state-owned communication giant Telkom Indonesia has appointed Goldman Sachs and Mandiri Sekuritas to help it find a strategic investor for its data centre business, according to a senior company official.
Goldman Sachs is the global financial advisor for the project and Mandiri Sekuritas is the lead advisor, Telkom's Senior Vice President of Corporate Communication and Investor Relation Ahmad Reza said.
"We hope that by unlocking this data center business, it will give the best value for all Telkom stakeholders," Reza said.
Reuters reported in February, citing sources, that a sale of a minority stake in the business, NeutraDC, could value it at more than $1 billion. Reza did not comment on financial details.
Investors and technology companies are readying for billions of dollars worth of deals and investments linked to data centres in Asia, as the artificial intelligence boom fuels demand for digital infrastructure.
In June, a consortium of U.S. investment firm KKR and Singapore Telecommunications announced it will invest S$1.75 billion ($1.3 billion) in ST Telemedia Global Data Centres, one of Asia's biggest data centre providers.
NeutraDC is the brand of PT Telkom Data Ekosistem, which is a subsidiary of Telkom, according to its website.
Its current assets include 29 data centers consisting of five global data centers and three enterprise data centers in Indonesia, its website showed.
It has one hyperscale data center in Jakarta and is building two more, with one in Batam, according to its website.
NeutraDC has 19 edge data centers in cities across Indonesia as well as global data centres in Singapore, according to its website.
Telkom is Indonesia's largest telecommunication group. It had a market capitalisation of more than $17 billion as of Tuesday, LSEG data showed.
($1 = 1.3240 Singapore dollars)