India’s newest telecom giant, Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited (RJIL), a subsidiary of Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) is in works to raise capital of up to Rupees 1,000 Crore by selling bonds privately to institutions. As of today, this is poised to be the largest private placement by a corporate entity in FY15.
The Mukesh Ambani-owned company was for a short time exploring the possibility of fixing the maturity value of either five, seven or ten years. However, it looks likely that Reliance Jio will raise the entire funds thorough ten-year securities. The coupon rate may be fixed between 9.25 per cent and 9.35 per cent. One of the persons familiar with the development was quoted as saying, “The Company has not yet reached the final deal. They are talking to a group of investment bankers, who are trying hard to get the deal due to the company’s brand image.”
As of now, Reliance Jio has not released an official statement on this topic. Investment Bankers also pointed out that infrastructure finance company IDFC had raised about Rupees 500 crore offering 9.18 per cent bonds of 10-year maturity. This IDFC issue, which closed on Friday, has a call option that allows the issuer to buy back the bonds after five years.
Balesh SJ, senior director for resources at IDFC, has confirmed the private placement of bonds. The IDFC issue has another clause that the company would make 25 per cent of repayments in each year at the end of seventh, eighth, ninth and tenth years. There were about six investment bankers for this issue.Housing Development Finance Corp, the nation’s largest mortgage lender, last week began the show after a two-month lull in the privateplacement market as issuers waited for clarity on new rules on certain redemption reserve requirements under the amended Companies Act.HDFC’s 366-day bonds offered 9.13 per cent. The ministry of corporate affairs had clarified that it has exempted non-banking finance companies from maintaining a 50 per cent debenture redemption ratio in the last one year ahead of maturity.
An interesting thing to note is that unlisted corporate entities like Reliance Jio need to maintain a debenture redemption ratio of 25 per cent one year prior to maturity. In layman terms, it means that RJIL will have to set aside a large chunk of money for this capital raising process to materialize. However, with RIL as its parent company, that really should not be a problem.