Adani International Container Terminal's USD bond issuance oversubscribed 10 times

Adani International Container Terminal Pvt Ltd (AICTPL) on Monday said its maiden USD 300 million bond issuance witnessed 10 times oversubscription.

AICTPL, a JV between Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone (APSEZ) and Terminal Investment Ltd (TIL), is a container terminal operating company based out of Mundra, having an annual capacity of handling over 3.1 million TEUs (twenty foot equivalent units).

"AICTPL settled its first USD 300 mn public USD bond issuance on 21st December 2020. The issue witnessed large participation from marquee real money investors with interests coming from around 220 accounts leading to approx. 10 times oversubscription. The issue of 10 Years was priced at par to yield 3.00 per cent which is also the lowest coupon achieved by any corporate Indian issuer in the last 5 years," the company said in a statement.

It said investors were attracted by its strong shareholders, APSEZ & TiL, and their combined business strengths embedded in the company, backed by the credit quality of the issuance supported by investment grade rating affirmation by all three international rating agencies.

The issuance is in line with Adani Group's philosophy to tap the capital market to re-engineer the capital structure for assets and finance them with debt extending for the life of the project.

Barclays, Citigroup, DBS Bank, MUFG, and Standard Chartered were global coordinators, book-runners, and lead managers.

Karan Adani, CEO and Whole Time Director of APSEZ said, "The issuance is in line to the group’s capital management philosophy of re-engineering the capital structure and extending debt maturity in line to the life of asset. Our relationship with TIL is very important to us and holds the key to our strategy for making Mundra container hub for the region and AICTPL as our flagship terminal."

Successful issuance demonstrates the appreciation and acceptance of level of corporate governance at the private JV level, he said adding, the first note issuance by any port vertical JV company also paves the way and sets the benchmark for other JVs and subsidiary companies of the group to tap the capital market.

Ammar Kanaan, CEO of TIL said, “Our relationship with Adani is a classic example of a commercial partnership which is based on core principles of trust, transparency, and respect. AICTPL holds a key position in our overall portfolio of terminals across all continents and is ideally located at Mundra port enabling it to be the port of choice for cargo going to North India."

India is a strategic place for our investment, and we foresee great opportunities going forward, he said.