- Part of the cash will be used to refinance $1.5 billion worth of debt due to mature in February.
NE BUSINESS BUREAU
MUMBAI, JAN 6
Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) on Thursday announced that it has raised $4 billion in US dollar bond issuance in three-tranches. It has been the largest ever foreign currency bond issuance from India, the company said.
The Notes were nearly 3 times oversubscribed with a peak order book aggregating around $11.5 billion and were priced through RIL’s secondary curve.
The conglomerate raised $1.5 billion in a 10-year tranche, $1.75 billion in a 30-year and $750 million in a 40-year deal. The notes were nearly 3 times oversubscribed with a peak orderbook aggregating $11.5 billion and were priced through RIL’s secondary curve. Part of the cash will be used to refinance $1.5 billion worth of debt due to mature in February.
“Interest on the notes will be payable semi-annually in arrears and the Notes shall rank pari passu with all other unsecured and unsubordinated obligations of RIL. The bond proceeds will be primarily used for refinancing of existing borrowings,” an RIL official said.
The Notes are rated BBB+ by S&P and Baa2 by Moody’s. With this, RIL has joined a select group of issuers from Asia to have made jumbo bond issuances.
The Notes received orders from over 200 accounts in Asia, Europe and the United States. In terms of geographic distribution, the Notes were distributed: 53% in Asia, 14% in Europe and 33% in the United States. The Notes were distributed to high quality fixed income accounts: 69% to fund managers, 24% to insurance companies, 5% to banks and 2% to public institutions.
Srikanth Venkatachari, Joint Chief Financial Officer of RIL, commented, “We are extremely pleased with the strong outcome on our multi-tranche long dated USD bond issuance, having issued not only the largest debt capital market transaction at US$4 billion but also the tightest credit spreads across each of the long-dated tenors for any corporate in India.”
“The support received from the marquee international capital market investors is reflective of the strength of our underlying businesses with established growth platforms across energy, consumer and technology as well as robustness of our balance sheet. This issue continues the tradition of Reliance being a sophisticated and innovative issuer across the capital structure,” Venkatachari added.
BoFA Securities, Citigroup, and HSBC acted as Joint Global Coordinators. BofA Securities, Citigroup, HSBC, Barclays, JP Morgan and MUFG acted as Joint Active Bookrunners. ANZ, BNP PARIBAS, Crédit Agricole CIB, DBS Bank Ltd., Mizuho Securities, SMBC Nikko, Standard Chartered Bank and State Bank of India, London Branch acted as Joint Passive Bookrunners.
