Bharti Airtel Ltd.

Bharti Airtel plans to raise $750 million to $1 billion through a global bond issue to retire its costly Africa debt and fund expansion there. The issue will be in the form of debentures and will have a tenure of 10 years. Last week, credit ratings agency Fitch had reduced Bharti’s outlook to ‘negative’ from ‘stable’, citing risks involved in its African operations.

The proposal will be put up before the company’s board on May 4, when it meets to discuss results for the financial year-ended March 11. The proposal is expected to be cleared during the meeting. Banks and individuals in the global market will subscribe to the debentures. The final amount to be raised will depend on the interest rate the company gets and the response from promotional roadshows.

Bharti Airtel had earlier said it would prepay by March 2011 about $900 million of the $7.5 billion loan it took from banks to fund its acquisition of the African assets of Kuwait-based Zain Telecom.