* Spokesman for TDC's private equity owners declines comment
* FT said at the weekend owner KKR preparing TDC sale
* ATP fund says private equity owners testing the market
(Adds pension fund comments; updates shares to close)
By Peter Levring and John Acher
COPENHAGEN, Aug 3 (Reuters) - Danish telecom group TDC shareholder Permira declined to comment on Monday on a Financial Times report at the weekend that said its consortium partner KKR was preparing to sell shares in TDC.
The Financial Times said on Saturday that TDC was one of up to six companies that Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR), the world's biggest buy-out group, was preparing for public offerings worth billions of dollars.
KKR is a member of the Nordic Telephone Company (NTC) consortium along with Permira, Apax Partners, the Blackstone Group and Providence Equity Partners. The consortium owns 88 percent of TDC.
"We do not have any comments on this matter at this point," Kurt Bjorklund, a partner at London-based Permira Advisers LLP, told Reuters in a brief email statement.
Bjorklund said that he was speaking on behalf of NTC.
TDC's spokesman Per Christiansen declined to comment on what he called "rumours and speculation."
If such a sale were to take place, it would be the biggest stock offering in years in Denmark.
TDC's illiquid stock ended the session off 1.9 percent at 180.50 crowns, which gives the company a market capitalisation of about 35.81 billion Danish crowns ($6.85 billion).
TEST BALLOON
An executive at Danish pension fund ATP, which owns 5.5 percent of TDC's stock, said he thought the private equity owners were testing the market's appetite for an offering.
"This is a test balloon to get the market's reaction and simultaneously to tell potential buyers that now they should start taking a closer look at the company," ATP funds director Bjarne Graven told Reuters.
Graven said he thought any sale by KKR would be in unison with the other private equity owners in NTC.
He said it was too early to say if ATP's holding would change if a large portion of TDC stock joined the free float.
Graven said ATP had not been in contact with banks or other advisers about its TDC stake.
NTC took control of TDC, the former national monopoly Tele Danmark, in January 2006 in a deal worth nearly 9 billion euros ($12.82 billion).
After the 2006 acquisition, NTC was unable to delist TDC from the Copenhagen bourse because the ATP pension fund refused to sell and its stock and remains the second-biggest owner.
TDC's Chief Executive Henrik Poulson told the Danish daily Berlingske Tidende in February that there were three main scenarios for NTC -- it would be sold to a competitor, a bigger portion of the stock would be floated on the Copenhagen stock exchange, or another equity fund would buy it.
Poulsen said then that a further floating of TDC on the bourse was the most likely of those scenarios.
Senior bankers at Danske Bank and Nordea told Reuters last month that investors had appetite for a possible resurgence of stock offerings by the end of this year. ($1=.7019 Euro) ($1=5.226 Danish Crown) (Editing by Karen Foster)