South Korea's largest department store operator, Lotte Shopping, is said to be planning an initial public offering (IPO) in Singapore of some of its shopping malls, according to a report on Tuesday by Bloomberg.

The news agency said the sale could raise at least US$1 billion and may take place as early as this year, citing two unidentified sources.

This would make the offering Singapore's third-largest so far this year, behind the IPOs of Mapletree Greater China Commercial Trust and Asian Pay Television Trust.

Lotte is in the process of selecting the malls to be included in the offering and has yet to decide whether the structure of the listed entity should be a business trust or real estate investment trust, the sources told Bloomberg.

Bloomberg also reported that the sale is being managed by DBS Group, Goldman Sachs Group, Nomura Holdings and Standard Chartered.