Adani Electricity raises $1 billion in first dollar bond issuance by private utility

Adani Electricity Mumbai Ltd (AEML), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Adani Transmission Ltd, has completed the issuance of one billion dollars 3.9 per cent bonds with an over-subscription of 5.9 times.

"Adani Group's moves in the dollar bond market displays one of the Indian companies that has successfully tapped the offshore bond markets," the company said in a statement.

AEML's bond structure met the stringent standards for being considered as investment-grade by Moody's and Fitch Ratings.

AEML is the licensee for an integrated power distribution, transmission and generation business that currently serves more than 30 lakh consumers across a license area of 400 sq km in the city of Mumbai, the world's seventh largest city by size of population.

The company's market share of Mumbai is 87 per cent by license area, 67 per cent by consumers served and 55 per cent by electricity supplied.

"Our issue has manifested a new juncture of development for Indian issuers," said AEML adding the efforts to reach a broad range of investors format paid off as US accounts picked up 29 per cent of the bonds alongside 43 per cent allocation to Asia and 28 per cent to Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA).

"The issuance saw strong global participation leading to final order-book over 5.9 billion dollars with participation from across 245 accounts. It was the largest ever for a private infrastructure transaction in India," it said.

The placement consists of a 10-year paper with a bullet maturity. The proceeds will be used to repay existing rupee-denominated indebtedness of AEML and for general corporate purposes.

Barclays, Citigroup, DBS Bank Ltd, Deutsche Bank, Emirates NBD Capital, JP Morgan, MUFG and Standard Chartered Bank were joint book-runners and lead managers. BofA Securities, Credit Suisse and Mizuho Securities were the joint lead managers.