In the largest such sale by a private company this year, telecom major
Bharti Airtel on Monday raised $1 billion through a bond sale in the overseas market, merchant bankers said.
The 10-year unsecured bonds have a coupon of 5.125 per cent per annum and were launched by Bharti Airtel International (Netherlands), a wholly-owned subsidiary of the telecom firm, Jujhar Singh, MD, capital markets at StanChart India, said.
Last Monday, Bharti launched roadshows in Asia, Europe and the US and had picked seven foreign banks for this unsecured senior bonds (or RegS bonds), which can be issued to non-US residents and qualified institutional buyers with lesser protection clauses.
Barclays, BNP Paribas, Citi, Deutsche Bank, HSBC, StanChart and UBS were the arrangers. The Bharti Airtel bond carried a BBB- rating from Fitch, BB+ from another agency S&P.
With this, the Sunil Mittal-promoted Bharti becomes the largest private sector borrower to tap the global bond markets this year after Reliance Industries' $800 million perpetual bond in late January.
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