Reliance Industries has raised $4 bln (around Rs 30,000 cr) via the largest ever foreign currency bond issuance by an Indian entity.
The amount will be used to retire the group’s existing debt.
The bonds have been issued in 10-year, 30-year and 40-year maturities, and also mark the first time any BBB-rated Asian company outside Japan has issued a 40-year dollar bond.
The notes will carry coupon (interest rate) linked to US treasuries. The 10-year notes will carry a coupon rate that is 1.2 percentage point above the 10-year US treasury note, the 30-year bond will offer 160 basis points over the corresponding US govt bond and the 40-year note will give 170 basis points over the respective US Treasury note.
This represents the “tightest ever implied credit spread” over US Treasury notes in each of the 3 tranches by an Indian company, Reliance Industries said.
53% of the money was raised from Asia, 14% from Europe and 33% in the United States, RIL said.
In terms of investor profile, 69% went to fund managers, 24% to insurance companies, 5% to banks and 2% to public institutions.
With this, said the company, it has “joined a select group of issuers from Asia to have made jumbo bond issuances.”
The notes were nearly 3 times oversubscribed with a peak orderbook aggregating around $11.5 billion.