Petrobras Hires Bank for Braskem Stake Sale

State-controlled oil producer Petróleo Brasileiro SA hired Banco Bradesco BBI to help sell a 36.1 percent stake in petrochemical giant Braskem SA (BAK), Folha de S. Paulo newspaper reported on Wednesday.

The company, commonly known as Petrobras, wants to dispose of the Braskem stake to help raise cash from a targeted $15.1 billion in asset divestments by the end of the year, Folha reported, without citing sources.

At current prices, the stake is worth 5.8 billion reais ($1.4 billion), Folha said, without saying whether the calculation includes any type of premium.

At current prices, Petrobras' Braskem stake is worth about 4.8 billion reais, according to Thomson Reuters calculations. Bradesco BBI, the investment-banking unit of Banco Bradesco SA (BBDO) , has already started to pitch the deal to foreign investors, Folha reported.

Non-voting shares of Braskem shed 3.7 percent to 25.64 reais on Wednesday. The stock is up 75 percent over the past 12 months.

Engineering conglomerate Odebrecht SA owns 38.3 percent of Latin America's largest producer of resins. Bradesco and Braskem declined to comment. Petrobras did not immediately comment.

The report comes a day after Petrobras trimmed capital spending for the 2015-2019 period by one-quarter to $98 billion, a move that investors said was an admission that expansion plans imposed by more than 12 years of Workers' Party governments were unrealistic.

Petrobras is increasingly relying on asset sales and cost cuts to pay for investment.

Reporting by Guillermo Parra-Bernal and Silvio Cascione