Shares of Reliance Industries gained as much as 2.3 per cent in Tuesday's trade as Moody’s Investors Services had on Monday assigned a Baa2 rating to the US dollar-bond issue of Reliance Industries. This global rating agency has pegged the rating outlook for these bonds as ‘stable’.
The uptrend in RIL counter was also attributed to raising of target price by Goldman Sachs.
The investment bank has raised the target price on Reliance by 26 per cent to Rs 1,205 and added the stock to its 'conviction list' with a 'buy' rating. It also expects the company's core earnings to double over the next three years.
Following a positive open at Rs Rs 925 against the previous close of Rs 918.85, the scrip touched an intraday high of Rs 939.70 and a low of Rs 924. In terms of equity volume, 4.78 lakh shares exchanged hands on the BSE.
RIL shares ended higher by 1.47 per cent at Rs 932.40.
Moody’s Investors Services had on Monday assigned a Baa2 rating to the US dollar-bond issue of Reliance Industries. This global rating agency has pegged the rating outlook for these bonds as ‘stable’.
With India’s sovereign rating going up a notch higher to Baa2 recently, RIL is set to become the first corporate to benefit in terms of better terms for this offshore bond offering for which it has got Baa2 from Moody’s.
RIL is expected to use the bond proceeds — estimated at about $800 million — for refinancing (replace high cost debts with a lower interest rate debt).
It can be noted that for the September quarter, RIL, which has a market capitalisation of close to Rs 6 lakh crore, had a cash pile of Rs 77,014 crore and a debt of Rs 2,14,145 crore, up from Rs 1,96,601 crore in the previous quarter.
The Mukesh Ambani-led RIL has been borrowing heavily for expansion and entry into telecom space with Reliance Jio into which it has invested over Rs 1.4 lakh crore. That apart it has also pumped in over Rs 1 lakh crore into its core refining and petrochemicals expansion which is now completed.
“The Baa2 rating reflects RIL’s ability to generate operating cash flows, with annual Ebitda of over $10 billion from its large-scale integrated refining and petrochemical operations that generate strong margins, and its nascent but growing digital services business,” said Vikas Halan, a vice-president and senior credit officer at Moody’s.
The rating also incorporates the increase in RIL’s business risk because of its growing digital services business and our expectation that high cash outflow for capital spending will keep its free cash flow negative over at least next 18 months”, added Halan, who is also Moody’s lead analyst for RIL.
(With inputs from PTI)
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