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Malaysia’s Axiata Group said on Thursday that it was considering selling an equity stake of up to 20 percent in PT XL Axiata, Indonesia’s third-largest cellular phone operator.

The group owns an 86.5 percent stake in Jakarta-listed XL.

The sale will be carried out via an international private placement of secondary shares by Axiata for as much as 20 percent of XL’s issued share capital, Axiata said in an announcement to the Malaysian stock exchange.

The final offering price and size will be determined after the completion of the bookbuilding process, it added.

Jamaludin Ibrahim, president and chief executive of Axiata said that in 2009, “XL has made tremendous progress both operationally and financially through strong execution of a focused and well developed strategy. On the back of this momentum, and with the continued macro recovery driving capital markets, we believe that this is the right time to conduct this offering, enabling investors to participate in XL’s growth story.”

Hasnul Suhaimi, the president director of XL, added that “2009 was a very good year for XL and we are pleased with the support we have continuously received from our major shareholder Axiata. We believe that it will provide further support to XL in its growth and development as one of Indonesia’s largest listed companies.”

Goldman Sachs has been appointed sole global coordinator and is acting as joint book runner along with CIMB Investment Bank.

Axiata said that it had yet to decide how to use the expected proceeds. But Hasnul has said that the company aimed to boost its data service business going forward as revenue growth from the voice business had started to decline.