ICICI Bank hits overseas debt market with $500-mn issue

Bank is expected to close the 5.5-year issue tonight

Private sector lender ICICI Bank on Thursday hit the overseas debt market with a $500-million dollar-denominated bond issue and is expected to close the 5.5-year issue tonight.

"The bench market issue will be sold through the Dubai International Finance Centre branch of the bank, and the lead-managers have given a price guidance of 1.55 per cent over the US treasury," merchant bankers told PTI in Mumbai on Thursday.

They said the issue is part of ICICI Bank's $7.5 billion global medium-term notes programme.

Global rating agencies S&P and Moody's have rated the proposed senior unsecured notes at 'BBB-' and Baa3, respectively.

Assigning 'BBB-' rating to the debt instrument, S&P said the rating on the notes reflects the long-term issuer credit rating on the largest private sector bank in the country.

Moody's Investors Service said the Baa3 rating to the proposed RegS notes issued under its $7.5 billion MTN programme will have a maturity of 5.5 years and will be listed on the Singapore Stock Exchange.

Moody's has also given a positive outlook on the ratings. The US securities Commission debars resident American investors from investing in Regulation S (RegS) debt issued by overseas entities.

Since the past two years, debt raising by domestic companies have been on a low gear given the poor investment climate here. Nearly half a dozen companies raised around $1.82 billion from overseas markets in January this year.

Out of this, $1.40 billion were foreign debt in January and the rest were funds raised via rupee-denominated bonds, according to the Reserve Bank data.

While Rural Electrification Corporation raised $400 million for on-lending under the ECB route, NTPC mopped up $531.2 million and Adani Ports & Special Economic Zone raised $500 million.