Boston-based private-equity firm Advent International Corp. is looking to sell its 50% stake in Brazil's Terminal de Contê ineres de Paranaguá SA in a deal that could fetch around $1.3 billion, two people involved in the matter said Monday.

"Morgan Stanley is looking at sale options for Advent," one of the people said. "At this point they are testing the market and if they get satisfactory offers, they'll firm up the sale."

Advent declined to comment. Morgan Stanley and TCP didn't immediately respond to requests for comment.

Paranaguá is Brazil's second-largest container operator after the Port of Santos in Sã o Paulo, handling 1.5 million containers a year. Advent bought 50% of TCP in 2011 for around $1 billion.

Other TCP investors include Brazil's Pattac Empreendimentos e Participaç õ es, Soifer Participaç õ es Societá rias Ltda. and TUC Participaç õ es Portuá rias SA, and Spain's Grup Marí tim TCB SL and Galigrain SA.

U.S. East Coast and Latin American ports are expected to benefit from the expansion of the Panama Canal earlier this year. The waterway now handles vessels carrying up to 14,000 containers, compared with up to 5,000 containers previously.

The American Association of Port Authorities says close to $155 billion will be invested by 2020 to expand U.S. ports to handle the bigger ships. South American terminals are also in an expansion race.

Paranaguá , on southern Brazil's Atlantic coast, is one of the fastest-growing ports in Latin America, and TCP has a concession to manage the port until 2024.

TCP announced in April a series of infrastructure improvements at Paranaguá which are meant to boost its handling capacity by 1 million containers by 2018.

Shipping executives said they expect some of the world's biggest port operators to bid for Advent's stake.

Write to Costas Paris at costas.paris@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

July 25, 2016 12:05 ET (16:05 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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