Idea Cellular [Get Quote], the telecom company of the Aditya Birla group, aims to raise Rs 2,500 crore (Rs 25 billion) through an initial public offering. The company will go in for a pre-IPO private placement of 15 per cent of the shares to be offered through the issue.

The company today filed a red herring prospectus with the Securities and Exchange Board of India. The entirely book-built IPO will have a green-shoe option.

Investment bankers said the IPO should hit the market within a month, subject to Sebi's clearance. The pre-IPO placement of shares would act as a benchmark for pricing of the IPO.

The company would offer nearly 10-12 per cent of the post-issue capital through the proposed IPO, which put its valuation at Rs 20,000-25,000 crore (Rs 200-250 billion), they added.

The market capitalisation of the other two leading telecom companies, Bharti and Reliance Communications [Get Quote], today stood at Rs 121,097 crore (Rs 1,210.97 billion) and Rs 93,654 crore (Rs 936.54 billion), respectively.

The Aditya Birla group had divested nearly a 33 per cent stake to a handful of investors such as Providence Equity Partners of the US, India's ChrysCapital, the UK's TA Associates and GLG Partners and Citigroup.

The group sold the shares at Rs 50-53 apiece, substantially higher than what it paid to buy out the Tata group's shareholding this April.