JSW Infra raises $400 million via seven-year green bonds at 4.95%

Will use proceeds to repay existing debt of the Company and its subsidiaries, and as permitted by RBI under ECB Guidelines

JSW Infrastructure today said it has priced a $400 million 144A/Reg S Senior Secured Guaranteed Sustainability-Linked Bond for a seven year tenure at 4.950 percent.

The proceeds of this issue will be used to repay existing debt of the Company and its subsidiaries and as permitted by RBI under the ECB Guidelines.

This fund raise marked the Company’s debut bond issue as well as the first Sustainability-Linked Bond (SLB) from  an Indian ports company, said JSW in its statement.

JSW Infrastructure also became one of the few companies to successfully issue a long tenor high yield corporate bond in their debut issuance itself.

This Sustainability-Linked Bond issue is guided by JSW Infrastructure’s Sustainability-Linked Bond Framework which is aligned to the International Capital Market Association (ICMA).

The company has obtained a second party opinion from DNV, describing the Sustainability Performance Target set as “ambitious” and “beyond what is considered ‘business-as-usual’.

The company engaged with multiple investors during the deal roadshow on Jan 11 and 12 across Asia, Europe and US, it said.

Backed by strong investor feedback, the transaction was launched with an initial price guidance of 5.250 percent area. Subsequently supported by robust interest from high quality real money investors, the company was able to tighten pricing by 30bps to 4.950 per cent, despite yield widening in the high yield bond markets.

“These funds will help us to realign our capital structure and bring in more funding efficiency in the coming years. The success of this SLB Bond Issue validates our stable business model with our renewed focus on Sustainability-linked business strategy,” Arun Maheshwari, joint managing director and chief executive officer of JSW Infrastructure was quoted as saying.

The deal received strong response from investors globally, resulting in the order book to peak at $1.35 billion plus with final order book in excess of $1.13 billion with an oversubscription of >3x. The transaction witnessed 46 percent participation from Asia, 30 percent from Europe and 24 percent from the US, with 92 per cent investments from funds, 6 percent from private banks and 2 percent from banks and others.

Deutsche Bank and Standard Chartered Bank acted as Joint Global Coordinators and Bookrunners and Deutsche Bank also acted as the Sole Sustainability-Linked Notes structuring agent.

Axis Bank, Barclays and Emirates NBD acted as Joint Bookrunners.