Taking advantage of liberalised norms for external commercial borrowings to raise upto $500 million through the automatic route, Sunil Mittal-promoted Bharti Group is planning to tap the overseas market next fiscal.
"We are planning to raise between $500 to $600 million through ECBs in the coming financial year. The funds would be used for meeting capital expenditure, expansion of network and refinancing of earlier debts," Akhil Gupta, joint managing director of Bharti Televentures, told reporters on the sidelines of a contract signing ceremony with Ericcson.
Bharti, which has got letter of intent for six circles to acquire unified telecom licence, is likely to convert them into licences in the coming few days, Gupta said adding, "We have almost completed the process, we should be signing licence agreement with DoT any day."
Earlier, Bharti Televentures signed a $400 million contract with Sweden's Ericcson as part of which the latter would manage, maintain and provide quality assurance in 10 existing and three new networks of Airtel.
As part of the three-year agreement, Ericcson would deliver equipment and servers based on Bharti's capacity requirement, Gupta said adding the company would be raising upto $300 million offered by ABN Amro Bank for which Swedish export credit agency EKN has provided security.