(Bloomberg) -- The Africa unit of Bharti Airtel Ltd. plans an initial public offering in London to help reduce debt at the continent’s second-largest mobile carrier.

The offer by the wireless carrier on the London Stock Exchange would comprise new shares and the sale would seek a free float of at least 25%, the company said Tuesday in a filing. It is also considering a listing in Nigeria, it said.

The sale of shares to the public could raise about $1 billion, people familiar with the matter said earlier this month. The London listing could be this month and aims to start trading in June, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the matter is private. Airtel Africa Ltd. already raised $1.25 billion last year from investors including Temasek Holdings Pte and SoftBank Group Corp., giving it an equity value of about $4.4 billion.

JP Morgan Securities Plc is sole sponsor for the planned sale, according to the statement. BofA Merrill Lynch, Citigroup and JP Morgan are joint global coordinators and bookrunners.

The business has operations in 14 African markets including Kenya, Tanzania, Nigeria and Ghana, according to Bharti Airtel’s latest annual report.

Bharti Airtel, backed by billionaire Sunil Mittal, has spent heavily to defend its position in India against disruptive upstart Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd.

To contact the reporter on this story: P R Sanjai in Mumbai at psanjai@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Sam Nagarajan at samnagarajan@bloomberg.net, Dave McCombs

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