India Inc raised USD 3.55 billion from overseas market in Mar

Indian companies including IOC, Air India and IDFC raised a total USD 3.55 billion in March from overseas markets, data from RBI showed today.
Domestic firms had raised a higher USD 4.3 billion through external commercial borrowings (ECBs) and foreign currency convertible bonds (FCCBs) in the previous month.
As per the data from RBI, the borrowings by domestic companies through ECB and FCCBs were a combination of automatic and approval route.
The companies raised as much as USD 1.36 billion through approval route during the month, while USD 2.17 billion were raised by the way of automatic route.
Through the approval route, Indian Oil Corporation raised USD 810 million for overseas acquisition and Intel Technology India raised USD 150 million for import of capital goods.

Public carrier, Air India Ltd raised USD 99 million each in two separate tranches for import of capital goods through the approval route, while Dewan Housing Finance Corporation Ltd raised USD 70 million for on-lending/sub-lending.

In the automatic route category, Export-Import Bank (Exim Bank) and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation raised USD 500 million each for sub-lending and working capital purpose respectively. IDFC Ltd raised USD 300 million for sub-lending.
Among others raising money through automatic route, Sterling Biotech raised USD 206.46 million for refinancing of earlier ECB and Bharat Petroleum Corp raised USD 198.58 million for working capital needs.
India's ECB in the entire fiscal 2013-14 stood at USD 33.25 billion.