NTPC hits foreign bond market; raises $500 mn

NTPC CMD AR Choudhury

NTPC, India's largest power generating company, has become first Indian company to tap the foreign currency bond market following government clarification that provisions of the new Companies Act — regarding prospectus and allotment of securities — do not apply to issue of foreign currency bonds by Indian companies.

The PSU raised 500 million dollars from...

the international bond markets on November 19.

The offering was met with very strong demand and the transaction was oversubscribed within an hour of announcement.

According to NTPC, the final order book was over $2.3 billion, an oversubscription in excess of 4.6 times, with orders from 160 accounts.

“It is an affirmation of our leadership position in the Indian power sector by the international investors and renewed interest in India,” said Arup Roy Choudhury, CMD, NTPC.

In terms of geographical distribution, Asia took the bulk of the transaction at 68%, with supplemental demand from Europe and offshore US accounts at 18 percent and 14 percent, respectively.

The notes were distributed to high quality fixed income accounts: 53 percent to fund managers, 20 percent to banks, 15 percent to insurance, eight percent to official institutions and four percent to private banks and others.

NTPC has a portfolio of over 23,000MW capacity under execution and it intends to use the proceeds of this issue to finance its ongoing and new power projects.

Barclays, Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, HSBC and SBI Capital Markets acted as joint book-runners and lead managers.

The Maharatna PSU, with an installed capacity of 43,128 MW is presently contributing about one fourth of the country’s entire power generation and plans to become a 1,28,000 MW power company by 2032. NTPC plans to add 14,038 MW during the 12th Plan period (2012-17). It added 1,835 MW to its portfolio last fiscal and plans to add 2,023 MW in 2014-15 and the PSU has cash reserves of Rs.16,867.7 crore as on 31 March this year.