In a bid to boost finances impacted by $12.7 billion debt, Bharti Airtel is exploring the option of issuing new shares to the public or institutional investors, Economic Times Reports.

The newspaper quoted two persons aware of the development to say “Bharti was looking at a follow-on offer of shares and an external commercial borrowing, and that the list of options under consideration was bigger and included a possible stock market listing of its tower arm Bharti Infratel.”

This is for the first time since 2002 that the company is exploring issuing new shares to the public or institutional investors.

Bharti, which has operations in India, South Asia and Africa, desperately needs to pare its debt, which was acquired largely to fund its 2010 purchase of the African operations of Kuwait's Zain for an enterprise value of $10.7 billion, the report said.