Indiabulls Housing Finance, has raised $350 million through its first overseas bond issue in more than four years as it seeks to diversify funding after years of reducing liabilities to deal with after effects of the IL&FS collapse.
The bonds were raised on Tuesday with a 39 month tenure at 9.70%, tighter than the 9.95% initial price guidance earlier in the day. The bonds are labelled as so called social bonds and the proceeds from the same will be deployed towards home loans in the affordable housing segments and small-enterprises.
“Over a hundred investors applied for a piece of the issue with an order book of over three times the issue size at over $1.1 billion. Among the large investors that have invested in the issues are UK based Aberdeen Plc, large global investors like PIMCO, Blackrock, Swiss private banks Pictet and Vontobel and a sovereign fund from the UAE,” said a person familiar with the matter.
The company which had at one point in time raised as much as $3.2 billion in overseas debt had chosen to wind it down in the last five years as it conserved cash due to challenges faced by NBFCs in India post the collapse of IL&FS. “This issue marks the company’s return to international debt markets, and also represents a significant diversification in its sources of funding,” said the person cited above. The company did not reply to an email seeking comment. Barclays and Deutsche Bank were among the bankers to the issue.
The company had raised Rs 3693 crore through a rights issue last month which was subscribed more than two times. Shareholders were offered one right share for every two shares held by them. Indiabulls is in the process of changing its name to Samman Capital with a view to broaden its focus to retail lending besides its existing mortgages business.
