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Philip Morris currently owns 98.18 percent of Sampoerna,
Indonesia's biggest cigarette maker by market value and which is
worth $23 billion.
Philip Morris has short-listed Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse AG,
JPMorgan, Citigroup and Mandiri Sekuritas to sell down its
holding by at least 5.68 percent, to make the publicly available
shares in Sampoerna equivalent to at least 7.5 percent of its
total share base, one of the sources said.
Both people declined to be named due to the confidentiality of
the matter.
The stock exchange requires all listed Indonesian firms to have
a free float of at least 7.5 percent by Jan. 30, 2016. It was
not clear when Philip Morris planned to sell its stake, the
sources added.
Sampoerna shares rose 0.8 percent on Monday, outperforming the
broader Jakarta stock exchange <.JKSE>, which was down 1.2
percent.
The company has previously said it was exploring ways to comply
with the new free-float requirement.
Citigroup declined comment, while Goldman, Credit Suisse and
JPMorgan did not give an immediate comment. Mandiri Sekuritas
was not immediately available to comment.
Sampoerna sells some of the most popular cigarette brands in
Indonesia, a country where smoking remains widespread. It said
it had a market share of nearly 35 percent last year.
(Reporting by Eveline Danubrata, S. Anuradha of IFR and Anshuman
Daga; Additional reporting by Cindy Silviana and Fransiska
Nangoy; Editing by Biju Dwarakanath and Miral Fahmy)
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