Airtel hits global bond market with $1 billion issue to fund capex

June 03, 2015 07:20 pm | Updated 07:20 pm IST - MUMBAI

New Delhi:Olympic  champion , World record holder and Ambassador  of 5th Airtel Delhi helf Marathon David Rudisha during a media intaraction, in New Delhi on September 28,2012. Photo:Sushil Kumar Verma

New Delhi:Olympic champion , World record holder and Ambassador of 5th Airtel Delhi helf Marathon David Rudisha during a media intaraction, in New Delhi on September 28,2012. Photo:Sushil Kumar Verma

Country’s largest telecom firm Bharti Airtel has approached the global debt market on Wednesday to raise up to $1 billion in a 10-year bond sale programme.

Bharti’s $1-billion Reg S bond is in the market. The 10-year note will be closed by tonight, after the U.S. markets closes, one of the lead bankers to the issue told PTI on Wednesday.

The source further said the Sunil Bharti promoted company had given an initial price guidance of 220 basis points above the U.S. treasury, which is trading at around 2.60 per cent.

The company has appointed six merchant bankers to the deal, which include Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, Barclays, Deutsche Bank, HSBC and Standard Chartered among others.

This marks the first major bond sale by a domestic private sector corporate in the fiscal. Last year, the heavily indebted company had hit the forex debt market thrice raising more than $2.5 billion.

Earlier in the day, in an exchange filing the New Delhi-based company said it would be raising funds from the international market.

“Bharti Airtel has approached investors for issuance of debt instruments in the form of U.S.-denominated senior unsecured notes,” it said in a filing to BSE.

The notes are rated BBB- by Fitch, BBB- by S&P and Baa3 by Moody’s.

“The proceeds will be used for capital expenditure in compliance with end-use guidelines set forth in the master circular by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and all laws and regulations of India applicable to the company,” Airtel said in the filing, adding instrument would be listed on the Singapore exchange.

The company had posted a 30.5 per cent rise in net profit at Rs.1,255 crore for the March quarter driven by data revenue. But its Africa business continued to bleed with increasing losses and declining revenue.

For the March quarter, its Africa business loss increased to Rs.1,138 crore from Rs.645 crore in the same quarter last year, while for 2014-15, losses stood at Rs.3,548 crore against Rs.1,855 crore for 2013-14.

0 / 0
Sign in to unlock member-only benefits!
  • Access 10 free stories every month
  • Save stories to read later
  • Access to comment on every story
  • Sign-up/manage your newsletter subscriptions with a single click
  • Get notified by email for early access to discounts & offers on our products
Sign in

Comments

Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.

We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of The Hindu and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.