Financial Closure For Bpl-Us West

BPL-US West Communications _ the cellular licensee in Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Kerala _ has gone into financial closure, the stage when equity and debt commitments to a project are finalised. The company is in the final stages of documentation with bankers and financial institutions on a Rs 1,300-crore debt deal, the largest of its kind in India.

The company has tied up debt for the project after the promoters _the Bangalore-based BPL group and US West, a regional US Baby Bell _ pumped in equity amounting to Rs 900 crore.

The BPL-US West financial closure makes it the fourth Indian cellular project in the circles (mostly analogous to states) to do so. It is, however, the first one to rely heavily on rupee funds.

Most of the BPL-US West project debt is learnt to have been raised from rupee sources. The pricing of the loans and an exact break-up of the rupee-dollar tranches of the project debt is not available.

The company had underwritten offers for $250 million (about Rs 1,075 crore) from foreign banks and Indian financial institutions.

The lead-arranger banks for the foreign debt are the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (which recently announced a merger with Toronto Dominion), Bank of America and ABN Amro.

On the rupee side, BPL-US West has concluded deals with the Industrial Development Bank of India, Industrial Credit and Investment Corporation of India, Industrial Finance Corporation of India and the State Bank of India.

Three other projects _ Escotel Mobile, Birla-AT&T and Tata Communications _ have also gone into financial closure, sourcing funds through loan syndications abroad.