Bharti seeks $8bn

Bharti Airtel plans to borrow as much as $8 billion in loans to finance its proposed acquisition of the African assets of Kuwaiti telco Zain, reports BusinessWeek.

Bharti made a $10.7 billion offer to Zain and the purchase is expected to be the second largest overseas acquisition by an Indian company.

Bharti says it would rather borrow to fund the deal than issue new shares where it would be forced to increase its holdings to maintain a controlling stake.

State-owned China Unicom has shown interest in privatising Nitel, but denied that it is part of a consortium bidding for the Nigerian telco, states The Canadian Press.

Unicom says its European unit contacted bidders for Nitel, but has held no direct negotiations. The telco revealed it's interested in exploring the possibility of an equity investment.

However, Unicom denied news reports last week saying it was part of a consortium that bid $2.5 billion for Nitel, the country's former telecoms monopoly.

Maps of Ghanaian towns including Accra and Kumasi have been made accessible on Google Maps via mobile handsets, says Joy Online.

Google will hold workshops to help programmers, Web masters and designers to incorporate Google Maps on their sites and develop new services based on local information.

Estelle Akofia-Sowah, Google's Ghana head says: “We believe more accurate, representative local information can greatly improve the breadth of information available about a given area and in turn can help efforts to bolster tourism and business investment.'