ONGC raises Rs 1,970 cr through bonds

State-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation has raised Rs 1,970 crore through a issue of bonds to refinance the debt its overseas investment arm had taken to buy UK-based Imperial Energy.

ONGC Videsh, the overseas arm of the state-run explorer, sold five-year bonds with an 8.40 per cent coupon rate (or interest rate), ONGC Director (Finance) Dinesh Sarraf said here.

The company, in January this year, had taken a one-year bridge loan of Rs 5,250 crore ($1 billion) to fund Imperial acquisition. It is now refinancing it through term borrowing.

"We will next issue commercial papers (CP) to raise about Rs 1,500 crore," he said.

The company has already garnered $200 million through a three-year foreign currency loan.

"We will complete the refinancing before January 10," he said.

OVL had sold one-year commercial paper to about 15 investors on January 9 to partly fund the 1.4 billion pound Imperial buy. It is now taking term loan to pay these lenders.

For today's bond issue, Standard Chartered Bank, Trust Investment Advisor, AK Capital, ICICI Bank, ICICI Securities Primary Dealership, SBI Capital Markets, Citibank, Axis Bank, HSBC Bank and Kotak Mahindra Bank were the arrangers.

"The bonds are payable in five-years beginning today," he added.