By Anurag Joshi and Rahul Satija
A company backed by one of the richest Indian tycoons raised $1 billion in a dollar bond sale Wednesday, as growing appetite from foreigners gives local companies the best start for offshore issuance.
Adani Electricity Mumbai Ltd., owned by billionaire Gautam Adani, priced 10-year bonds at a spread of 230 basis points above Treasuries. The issuance adds to the nation’s surging overseas bond sale volumes, which have touched $4.7 billion so far in 2020, the highest compared with the same period for previous years, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
The first billion-dollar bond issuance from Adani’s conglomerate was priced even as Asian debt sales have slowed from record levels due to the rapid spread of the coronavirus in China. India has been able to relatively insulate itself from the deadly outbreak that has infected over 28,000 in Asia, with just three positive cases reported in the country so far.
Indian companies are raising record amounts of debt overseas to sidestep a prolonged onshore credit crunch and a surge in defaults. Local firms sold a record $22 billion of notes abroad in 2019, according to Bloomberg-compiled data.
“There has been a pent up demand for local debt from overseas investors, which is showing up in the recent bond sales,” said A S Thiyaga Rajan, a senior managing director in Singapore at Aquarius Investment Advisors Pte.
--With assistance from Bhuma Shrivastava.
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