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tate-owned telecommunications company PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia Tbk (Telkom) will soon appoint local and foreign financial appraisers to help the company assess its plan to buy back Singapore Telecommunications’ (SingTel’s) 35 percent stake in Indonesia’s largest mobile operator, Telkomsel, the company’s top executive said.

Telkom president Rinaldi Firmansyah said in Jakarta on Thursday that five local and foreign financial companies would take part in a “beauty contest” to select the advisors.

He added that a local financial company, PT Bahana Securities, and four financial advisors from the United States had been picked to take part in the selection process.

He further said that the five companies were shortlisted from eight companies that had formally submitted their proposals to become the advisors for the buyback plan.

“We will select one local and two foreign companies to help assess the buyback plan,” he said following the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) by 16 state-owned companies affirming their commitment to support the establishment of the Indonesian Logistics Community Services (ILCS).

Rinaldi said that the buyback of SingTel’s shares in Telkomsel was one of Telkom’s most important corporate plans for the year.

Telkom earlier offered to swap SingTel’s shares in Telkomsel with its own shares to control the entire ownership of the mobile phone operator, but the plan received a cool response from SingTel.

Telkom currently has a 65 percent stake in Telkomsel, with SingTel holding the remaining 35 percent. Telkom sold its shares to SingTel several years ago as part of the government’s privatization program.

At the ILCS MoU signing event, port operator PT Pelabuhan Indonesia (Pelindo) II and Telkom also signed an agreement to establish a joint venture to operate the ILCS, one of the government’s important programs designed to form an integrated logistics system in the country and is expected to help improve national connectivity through the use of more reliable transportation technology — especially ships and the use of the latest IT technology to support cargo traffic management.

Pelindo II would utilize its expertise in the physical logistics operations, such as with cargo traffic management, while Telkom would use its expertise in the operations of IT-based technology to support the ILCS, which is expected to be ready to begin operations in June of 2012.