ICICI Bank raises $300 million through international bond sale, fixes 3.25% coupon rate

Mumbai: Country’s largest private sector lender ICICI Bank Friday said it has raised $300 million through a international bond issue.

The 5.5 year fixed rate notes were issued by the bank’s branch in Dubai International Finance Centre (DIFC) and carry a coupon of 3.25 percent, it said in a statement.

The notes were sold under the RegS format and were offered at an issue price of 99.447, it said.

The bank had given a pricing guidance of up to 155 bps over the US treasury which is around 2 percent, and the 3.25 percent coupon reflects an ability to compress the pricing.

The bank had launched the issue, which was a part of its $7.5 billion medium-term notes programme, yesterday and the money raised through such offerings is generally used for international lending.

Global rating agencies S&P and Moody’s had 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.

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 USD 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.