Exim to raise $800 m abroad, Rs 3500 cr locally

The Export Import Bank of India (Exim bank) will be raising $800 million from overseas markets. In addition, it has firmed up plans of raising another Rs 3,500 crore from the domestic market.

The bank has targeted a Rs 14,000 crore advances under different advances programme against Rs 10,775 crore in 2003-04.

"We will be raising close to Rs 7,000 crore this year from domestic as well as overseas markets. Most of the overseas funds that we will be raising would be syndicated loans from financial institutions," explained S Sridhar, executive director, Exim Bank.

The bank has tied up with Myanmar for a $25 million line of credit and another $50 million credit line with Sudan.

Sridhar said the process of equity restructuring at Global Trade Finance (GTF) was complete with Exim bank acquiring five per cent from Germany based bank, West LB.

Exim Bank now holds 40 per cent and has emerged the largest stake holder in GTF, while Malta based, First International Merchant Bank (FIM Bank) has acquired another 38.5 per cent in the entity.

International Finance Corporation (IFC) held 25 per cent earlier but had now has scaled down its stake to 12.5 per cent, as opposed to its earlier decision of acquiring 15 per cent opposed to its earlier decision of offloading 10 per cent.

Overseas M&A deals: The executive director said Exim Bank was seriously pursuing its overseas equity finance business and had till date invested around Rs 800 crore for equity financing.

Two major acquisition by Indian companies overseas appeared to be on the cards. Negotiations had started on a proposal received from a Mumbai based engineering product company to setup a joint venture company in Hungary.