Telecom major Bharati Tele-Ventures Ltd has decided to raise up to $100 million by issue of foreign currency convertible bonds with a green shoe option of retaining additional $ 15 million.

The fund would be used for the purpose of meeting capital expenditure.

The decision was taken by the board of directors at its meeting held on Thursday. The company had earlier said that it plans to raise $500 million to fund its expansion plans this year. According to company sources the FCCB will be part of this corpus.

Bharti had earlier informed the Bombay Stock Exchange that it was considering several options, including issue of fresh equity shares, convertible debentures, foreign currency convertible bonds syndicated loans, non-debenture bonds or other debt instruments, for raising the funds.

The company, this week, announced that it plans to invest close to Rs 2000 crore (Rs 20 billion) for network expansion this year. It had recently raised around $315 million from ABN Amro Bank at an interest rate of 5.5 per cent.

The company has a net debt-funded equity ratio of less than 0.65. In the recent past Bharti has attracted over $1 billion equity investment by its partners, led by SingTel and Warburg Pincus.