Moscow, July 10 - Global retail giants Wal-Mart and Carrefour, along with investment fund TPG Capital, plan to bid for control of Russian retailer Lenta, sources close to the sale told Reuters on Thursday.
The privately owned St. Petersburg-based chain of hypermarkets is holding a tender for its sale in two weeks.
The sources said the size of the stake would be 89 percent, to include shares of all of the shareholders except the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), which owns 11.1 percent.
A Wal-Mart spokesperson could not immediately be reached for comment, and Carrefour declined to comment.
TPG Capital, a cash-rich U.S. fund that tried previously to invest in another Russian retailer, Seventh Continent, also declined comment.
Mike Duke, the head of international operations for Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, said last month the company was exploring opportunities in Russia.
Neither Wal-Mart nor Carrefour, the world's second largest retailer, have any retail outlets in Russia, but both have a representative office in the country.
Russia's largest retail chain, X5, does not plan to take part in the tender, its chairman and chief executive Lev Khasis told Reuters.
Lenta includes 31 hypermarkets, with 14 in St Petersburg, and the rest in other major Russian cities.
The company's revenues after value-added taxes were $1.5 billion in 2007.
Its main shareholders, Oleg Zherebtsov, who owns 35 percent, and U.S.-born August Meyer, who owns 36.4 percent, have been locked in a shareholders' dispute for nearly half a year.
In April, they reached a compromise and cooperated in seeking new sources of funding for the firm.