Stonepeak Partners and a consortium led by Japanese trading house Mitsui & Co were also picked to proceed to the next round of bidding, said the sources, who asked not to be identified as the information is private. The Mitsui-led group includes Japanese telecom operator KDDI Corp and Jtower Inc, they said.

Edotco is looking to raise as much as US$750 million (RM3.31 billion) in the stake sale, according to them. Existing shareholders, including Axiata, may tag along and sell down some of their stakes, potentially boosting the total share sale size to more than US$1 billion (RM4.42 billion), the people said.

The shortlisted bidders are conducting due diligence following a management presentation recently, the people said. The deadline for binding bids is around mid-May, one of them said.

Deliberations are ongoing and the bidders could decide to drop out, the sources said. Representatives for Axiata, CVC, Edotco, KDDI and Mitsui declined to comment, while representatives for I Squared, Jtower and Stonepeak didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

Founded in 2012, Edotco operates and manages a portfolio of more than 54,000 towers across nine Asian nations including Malaysia, Thailand, Pakistan and Myanmar, according to its website. Axiata is the controlling shareholder of Edotco, while other minority shareholders include sovereign wealth fund Khazanah Nasional Bhd, Innovation Network Corp of Japan and the Employees Provident Fund.

The company’s services range from tower leasing and co-location to operations and maintenance. It has expanded both organically and via mergers and acquisitions, including the purchase of around 3,000 towers in the Philippines from PLDT Inc last year.