Bharti Airtel International opens $250 million dollar bond

MUMBAI: Bharti Airtel International (Netherland), a wholly owned subsidiary of Bharti Airtel Ltd is set to raise upto $250 million through dollar bonds. In early March the telecom company had raised $1billion 10 year bond at a coupon of 5.125%.

This bond will be merged with the earlier issue and the initial guidance of the pricing is 5.125% yield,'' said a banker involved in the deal.

Domestic companies are accessing the overseas markets for funding as raising Rupee resources is very expensive. Companies are refinancing their old acquisition finance facility with cheaper debt,'' said another banker. Standard Chartered and Deutsche Bank are lead managers to the deal.

So far in 2013, over half a dozen companies, including RIL, PowerGrid, Tata Com, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, Exim Bank, Bank of India and Bharti Airtel among others, raised over $5 billion from overseas debt market.