Mumbai: The Exim Bank has raised USD 500 million in overseas debt by selling fixed rate unsecured senior notes at a coupon of 2.868 percent for the 5.5-year dollar money.
The notes, which got an over-subscription of four times at USD 2 billion, are priced at 155 bps over the 5-year US treasury bill at a price of 99.404 to yield 2.868 percent, Barclays, one of the merchant bankers to the deal, said here today, adding this is the lowest priced notes from the country since 2007.
The current issue is part of the Bank's USD 6 billion medium term notes and will be listed on the Singapore Exchange.
Since the beginning of the year, three companies have raised over USD 3 billion in forex bond sales with Reliance Industries alone raising USD 1.75 billion in two tranches within a fortnight.
Today, HDFC Bank raised close to Rs 8,000 crore by selling additional shares in the New York market through an ADR issue formed the part of the bank's Rs 10,500-crore fund raising plan with the rest being sold to domestic institutional investors.
Rating agencies Moody's and S&P have assigned a Baa3 (stable) and BBB- (stable) ratings, respectively, to the issue.
Apart from Barclays, other joint book-runners to the issue include Citi and Standard Chartered.
The Exim Bank spokesman could not be reached for comments.
The transaction was announced yesterday at an initial price guidance of 175 bps over the US treasury.
The final order book stood at USD 2 billion from 150 orders, allowing Exim Bank to price their transaction at the tight end of the final price guidance at 2.868 percent.
Barclays said geographically, 52 percent were Europeans, 36 percent Asians and 12 percent offshore US investors.
The notes were distributed to high quality fixed income accounts with 47 percent being fund managers, 27 percent banks, 11 percent each insurers and pension funds and central banks and sovereign wealth funds, and 4 percent were private banks.
According to Barclays, this is the first issuance by a domestic lender this year.
