Delhi International Airport Pvt Ltd (DIAL), a subsidiary of GMR Infrastructure Ltd (GMR), has raised $288.75 million in the international bond market, the company said in a stock market disclosure.
DIAL, which manages New Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport, has signed an agreement to allot 6.125 per cent senior secured fixed rate notes bonds maturing in seven years to investors in Asia and Europe.
The company will use the money to refinance one of the current outstanding external commercial borrowings.
"This deal marks the group’s first foray into international bond markets. The issuance buoyed by strong investor demand across geographies was oversubscribed many times over. That the deal has been concluded despite volatile market conditions in Europe depicts the investor confidence in India under its strong and decisive leadership and the strong credit fundamentals of GMR Group and Delhi Airport. The pricing was done at a very competitive rate and will reduce the overall financial burden on the Airport by way of interest cost reduction and repayment holiday which will increase the liquidity," said GM Rao, chairman, GMR Infrastructure.
"This bond issuance has opened up new avenues for GMR Group to tap a wide pool of investors for our ongoing and continuous financing requirements for our various projects," he added.
The project, being developed by DIAL under public private partnership, has been given the mandate to finance, design, build, operate and maintain the Delhi airport for 30 years with an option to extend it by another 30 years.
Citigroup and Standard Chartered Bank acted as global coordinators while Citigroup, Standard Chartered Bank, HSBC and JP Morgan acted as joint lead managers and joint book-runners for the issue and KKR Capital Markets acted as co-manager for the issue.
DIAL, is a joint venture company among GMR Group, Airports Authority of India, Fraport and Malaysia Airports Holdings Berhad. The firm has a debt of around Rs 5,800 crore.
GMR Infrastructure has also received an approval of $75 million loan from regional development financial institution Asian Development Bank (ADB) for the expansion and renovation of its Mactan Cebu Airport in Philippines.
GMR-Megawide Cebu Airport Corporation (GMCAC) is a 40:60 joint venture between GMR Infrastructure Ltd and Megawide Construction Corporation.
(Edited by Joby Puthuparampil Johnson)