Reliance Industries Ltd, the nation’s most valuable company, on Thursday said it has raised USD 4 billion debt in the largest ever foreign currency bonds issuance from India.
The oil-to-telecom conglomerate raised the money in foreign currency denominated bonds and plans to use the proceeds to retire existing borrowings.
The issue was “nearly 3 times oversubscribed with a peak order book aggregating USD 11.5 billion and was priced through RIL’s secondary curve,” a company statement said.
The firm raised USD 1.5 billion at a coupon rate of 2.875 per cent, USD 1.75 billion at 3.625 per cent and USD 750 million at 3.75 per cent. The notes are due to repayment between 2032 and 2062.“The Notes have been priced at 120 basis points, 160 basis points and 170 basis points over the respective US Treasuries benchmark,” it said.The Notes are rated BBB+ by S&P and Baa2 by Moody’s.With this, Reliance has joined a select group of issuers from Asia to have made jumbo bond issuances.“This transaction is significant on various counts – (it is) largest-ever foreign currency bond issuance from India, tightest ever implied credit spread over the respective US Treasury across each of the 3 tranches by an Indian Corporate, lowest coupon achieved for benchmark 30-year and 40-year issuances by a private sector BBB corporate from Asia ex-Japan, and first-ever 40-year tranche by a BBB private sector corporate from Asia ex-Japan,” the statement said.Reliance is a net-zero debt firm with its cash balance of Rs 2.59 lakh crore, exceeding its gross debt of Rs 2.55 lakh crore as of September 30, 2021.
Its existing cash, along with expected cash flows from operations, will be sufficient to cover its cash outflows for capital spending and debt maturities in the next 18 months, Moody’s Investors Service had said earlier this week.
