Bharti Airtel hits int'l bond street for 3rd time this year:

Country's largest telecom firm Bharti Airtel on Tuesday hit the international market with a benchmark Euro bond offering, merchant bankers said.

The company is offering the five year Euro bonds for investors and the money is being raised through its wholly owned Bharti Airtel International (Netheralnds) BV, sources told PTI.

It had conducted road shows for the bond sale, its third this year, last week in London, Paris, Amsterdam and Frankfurt. Merchant bankers had last week said the company is mulling to raise over $1 billion through bond sales, ahead of the spectrum auction slated next month.

Bharti could not be reached immediately for comments.

This is the third major bond sale by domestic companies after the May 24 tapering talk by the US Fed, which spiked interest rates in western markets.

The company's arm Bharti Airtel International Netherlands is raising the money, which will be fully guaranteed by the parent company.

According to one I-banker, StanChart, Barclays, JP Morgan, UBS and BNP Paribas are the joint book-runners and lead managers to the issue.

In March this year, the company had raised $1.5 billion in overseas debt in two tranches.

Meanwhile, Fitch Ratings has assigned BBB- ratings to the proposed senior unsecured Euro notes.

Fitch Ratings has assigned Bharti Airtel International Netherlands' proposed notes an expected rating of 'BBB-. The notes will be unconditionally and irrevocably guaranteed by Bharti Airtel, and are therefore rated at the same level as Bharti's foreign currency senior unsecured rating of 'BBB-', Fitch said in a statement issued from Singapore.

Vodafone offers to pay Rs 4,000 cr for extension of licences:

Nation's second-largest telecom firm Vodafone India has offered to pay Rs 4,000 crore and a spectrum usage charge of 3 per cent for extension of permits for Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata service areas for 20 years.

At Rs 4,000 crore, Vodafone is offering about one fourth of TRAI's suggested price for the premium mobile airwaves.

Vodafone's three permits held for Delhi, Kolkata and Mumbai are due to expire in the last quarter of 2014.

As per a decision taken by the government earlier, the company will have to buy spectrum afresh which it holds through these permits to continue operations.

The company has written a letter to Finance Minister P Chidambaram, who also heads the Empowered Group of Ministers on Telecom, to accept telecom regulator TRAI's recommendation of levying annual spectrum fee of 3 per cent on all operators.

"Vodafone had made an offer of Rs 4,000 crores to DoT at 3 per cent SUC (spectrum usage charges) for extension of its existing licences for Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata service areas for 20 years," Vodafone said in its letter to the Minister.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) in September recommended about 62 per cent reduction in the price of premium 900 Mhz spectrum band held by Vodafone and others.

As per the telecom regulator's suggestions, spectrum should be sold at a base price of Rs 650 crore per megahertz.

Vodafone, which holds 23.8 Mhz spectrum in Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata service areas, has to pay Rs 15,470 crore at TRAI's suggested base price to continue operations in the three metros.