MUMBAI, – India’s Manappuram Finance has accepted bids worth $300 million for U.S. dollar-denominated bonds maturing in four years, the gold financier informed the stock exchanges late on Wednesday.
The company has set a coupon of 7.375%, it said.
The coupon is within its initial guidance of 7.75%, two bankers said, declining to be named as they are not authorised to speak to the media.
CreditSights analysts, however, saw fair value above the price guidance at 8.50%.
“We are cautious about Manappuram as a credit, given the strong growth in its non-gold book, limited experience in the non-gold area, compliance issues that crop up from time to time, lack of disclosure on liquidity lines and undrawn facilities,” said Pramod Shenoi, head of Asia-Pacific Research at CreditSights.
The proceeds from the issue will be used for lending, refinancing and other activities and the notes are expected to be rated ‘BB-‘ by Fitch and S&P.
Barclays and Citigroup are the joint managers for this issue.
On Wednesday, another gold financier Muthoot Finance accepted bids worth $650 million for U.S. dollar-denominated bonds maturing in three years and nine months at a coupon of 7.1250%. (Reporting by Bhakti Tambe; Editing by Eileen Soreng)
