Tata Steel not looking to issue warrants with equities

The company, which has a net debt of USD 10.7 billion, has said on Tuesday that it will come out with an FPO for 5.7 crore ordinary shares, dates of which were not announced.
"The company is not looking at warrant issuance in addition to equities currently, as we have announced FPO of ordinary shares already without warrants attached," a Tata Steel spokesperson said.

Earlier in the day, the Finance Ministry said that the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB), which met on December 31, has cleared Tata Steel's warrant issue of Rs 1,100 crore.

The Tata Steel Spokesperson, however, declined to comment on the share sale date.
Industry sources said that the Registrar of Companies has approved the share sale plan of the company and it will now move to Sebi and other regulatory authorities for approvals.

The FPO is expected to fetch Rs 3,691.32 crore from the capital markets, as per the closing price of Tuesday (when FPO was announced) at Rs 647.60 per share on the Bombay Stock Exchange and the proceeds might be used to retire a substantial portion of its debt liability of USD 10.7 billion.

Majority of the debt, standing at USD 5.32 billion, consists of loans taken by the company for expansion of its Indian operations, as on September 30.The debts also include remaining portion of the loans (USD 4.58 billion) taken by the company to acquire Corus in 2007.

In November, Tata Steel Board has approved raising up to Rs 7,000 crore (USD 1.5 billion) and subsequently, on December 24, the company secured shareholders nod to raise a maximum of Rs 5,000 crore.

For the share sale, the Tata Steel had also said that price band and minimum bid lot for the share sale will be decided by the company in consultation with the book running lead managers (BRLMs) and it has appointed seven banks to manage the issue.

This includes Deutsche Bank AG, Royal Bank of Scotland Plc, Kotak Mahindra Capital Co Ltd, Standard Chartered Bank Plc and Citigroup Global Markets India Pvt Ltd.
However, since announcement of the FPO, scrips of the company has slid 1.79 per cent further and closed today at Rs 636 apiece on the BSE.