SK Telecom, KDDI bidding for Indonesia's First Media-sources

* SK Telecom, KDDI keen to expand overseas

* First Media being sold for $400-$500 mln-sources

* SK Telecom says interested in First Media

* KDDI declines to comment; keen on M&A 

SK Telecom Co and KDDI Corp are bidding for Indonesian cable TV and internet firm First Media which its parent Lippo Group is trying to sell for $400-$500 million, sources said. 

The South Korean and Japanese telecom companies have been looking for opportunities to invest overseas to offset saturated domestic markets and growing competition at home. 

KDDI, which lags industry leader NTT DoCoMo by a wide margin and has seen tough competition from smaller rival Softbank Corp , told Reuters last month it was in talks with several Asian internet service and content firms about mergers and acquisitions. 

"SK Telecom and KDDI have submitted bids along with local telcos," said one of the sources with knowledge of the deal. The sources declined to be named because the deal is not public. 

A KDDI spokesman in Tokyo declined to comment. Merrill and Deutsche also declined to comment. 

Indonesian conglomerate Lippo Group had hired Bank of America's Merrill Lynch to advise on the sale of First Media, sources had earlier said. Deutsche Bank is advising SK Telecom, sources said. 

First Media, which has a market value of about $230 million, competes against Indovision, a unit of  Indonesian media company Global Mediacom in pay TV  business. The company also runs broadband internet services  which compete with PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia   and Indosat .    First Media declined to comment. 

Lippo -- which owns property, healthcare, media and retail  assets in Indonesia, Hong Kong and Singapore -- has been restructuring its portfolio through either stake sales or outright sales. 

For an earlier story on Lippo, click    SK Telecom said it is interested in First Media, but had not made any decision. It declined to comment on the bid.     "We are looking at various (investment) opportunities overseas, and it (First Media) is just one of the options under consideration," a company official said.     SK Telecom, which controls around 50 percent of the South Korean telecom market, is seeking to expand overseas to generate new revenue streams. 

"I expect SK Telecom to continue to invest overseas, but more focus on emerging markets rather than advanced countries, and to make small-scale investments," said Jonathan Park, an analyst at Hanhwa Securities in Seoul. 

The carrier said in May last year it would invest $100 million to acquire an about 25 percent stake in Malaysian wireless broadband firm Packet One Networks, a unit of Green Packet Bhd. Source: Reuters