Delhi International Airport Pvt Ltd (DIAL) has raised $288.75 million in an overseas bond sale on Tuesday.

This is the first US dollar high yield corporate bond from Asia and India placed in the offshore markets in 2015, sources in the banking industry said.

It is also the first offshore infrastructure financing taking place for public private partnership project in India, they said.

DIAL-- which is the operator for the Delhi airport-- would use the proceeds to refinance its existing external commercial borrowing (ECB) outstanding, it is learnt.

As against book size of $288.75 million, the overall demand from foreign investors stood at about $5 billion. Citigroup Global was the joint lead manager and joint global coordinator for this bond sale.

There has been two (Reliance Industries and now DIAL) landmark international bond offerings so far this year and Citi has led both the US dollar transactions priced in India in 2015.

COUPON

The DIAL bond offering--which was a 7-year Reg S only transaction-- closed at 6.125 per cent (payable semi-annually), This reflected tightening of 37.5 basis points when compared to the initial pricing guidance of 6.50 per cent.

“This is the first USD bond offering for a marquee infrastructure asset from India under the PPP model and the first corporate high yield bond in Asia in 2015”, Neville Fernandes, Head of Debt Capital Markets origination, Citi India told Business Line.

This is expected to open up the US dollar bond market for other marquee Indian infrastructure assets who are keen to reduce their overall interest cost, extend debt maturities, improve operating flexibility and deepen their capital structure, he said.

srivats.kr@thehindu.co.in

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