Billionaire Gautam Adani-controlled Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Ltd launched an offshore bond offering to raise as much as $750 million.
This is the third and the largest offshore bond deal launched by an Indian company since the covid-19 pandemic disrupted global markets in March. State-owned REC Ltd and agrochemicals major UPL Ltd raised $500 million each in May and June, respectively.
The Adani Ports bond sale comes after SoftBank-backed Indian renewable company SB Energy pulled back its maiden $600 million bond offering in mid July.
According to the terms of the deal, seen by Mint, Adani Ports is raising the capital through seven-year bonds, maturing in 2027, at a rate of 4.2%.
Investment banks Barclays, Bank of America and Citigroup, among others, are advising Adani Ports on the bond sale. The capital raised will be used to repay existing loans of Adani Ports and its subsidiaries, which could include the debt of Krishnapatnam Port Co Ltd, which Adani entered into an agreement to acquire in January. The Krishnapatnam Port deal is yet to be closed.
Earlier in July, Adani Ports’ board had approved offshore bond capital raise of up to $1.25 billion. A spokesperson for Adani group could not be immediately reached for a comment.
Last December, Mint had reported that after tapping the dollar bond market twice in 2019, Adani Ports was preparing for a fresh issuance of dollar bonds in 2020. In June 2019, Adani Ports had raised $750 million through a bond sale, and followed it up with a $650-million buy back offer for bonds maturing in 2020 in the following month.
Last year, Adani group companies issued five dollar bond offerings, including two bonds by the ports operator, totalling about $2.76 billion. Its renewable energy business Adani Green Energy Ltd raised $500 million in May 2019 and another $362.5 million via bond issuance last October.
Adani Transmission, the power transmission and distribution business of the group, raised $500 million last November. In February, Adani Electricity Mumbai Ltd, raised $1 billion in its maiden dollar bond offering.
