Anil Ambani Group company, Reliance Infratel, is planning to raise about $1 billion by selling shares. The company is talking to some private equity firms, regarding this. Reliance Infra is a subsidiary of the telecom arm, RCOM. Rel Infra is planning to dilute 10-15% stake with private equity firms. 

The company may shortlist the names of the investors in the next few days. Last year, the company had given up the idea of raising Rs 6000 crore through sale of 10% stake because of bad market scenario. The idea was to develop passive infrastructure.

The IPO announced in February 2008, got the nod from SEBI in May, last year. The nod from SEBI lapsed in August because there was no official statement on revival of the public offer. The shares of RCOM dipped by 4% at BSE on Friday after seeing some improvements in the past weeks. 

The equity sale could value the company for around $7 billion. During the private placement of shares done previously, Rel Infra had raised Rs 1400 crore. It had diluted 5% stake with a number of overseas investors. The shareholders of RCOM and Rel Infra have come to a proposal, by which RCOM would transfer the business of optic fibre to Rel Infra in order to create one telecom infrastructure unit. The transfer was done to cut down operating costs and identify real economic value from infrastructure and telecom service businesses.