BackReliance Industries plans 10- 30 year dollar bonds
Reliance Industries plans 10- 30 year dollar bonds
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Mumbai: Reliance Industries Ltd, India’s biggest company by market value, plans to sell 10 and 30 year bonds denominated in US dollars.
Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc., HSBC Holdings Plc and Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc are managing the sale for Reliance Holding USA Inc, spokesman Manoj Warrier said in a telephone interview from Mumbai, declining to provide a size for the offering.
The energy explorer will seek to raise at least $1 billion after talks with investors from 6 October, according to a person familiar with the matter, who requested not to be identified because the details are private.
Reliance, controlled by billionaire Mukesh Ambani, owns the world’s largest refinery complex and has spent $3.4 billion since April buying US shale-gas assets. Ambani, ranked by Forbes India as the nation’s richest person with $27 billion of wealth, told shareholders in June that Reliance is planning mega investments in power generation as well as expansion in telecommunications.
Money from Reliance Holdings USA’s senior unsecured bonds will be used to refinance $765 million of loans for shale-gas ventures, for general use and for further business investments that may be pursued, Moody’s Investors Service said in a statement today, without being more specific.
Moody’s rated the new notes a provisional Baa2, its second-lowest investment-grade ranking. Standard & Poor’s gave them an equivalent BBB.
A $1 billion bond sale would be Mumbai-based Reliance’s first benchmark-sized offering in the US currency, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. It raised $162 million in 2007 from 6.24% notes due in 2017, the data shows. Benchmark typically means at least $500 million.
The company and its units have the equivalent of $1.4 billion of bonds and loans due by the end of 2012, Bloomberg data shows.
Reliance plans to meet bond investors in Singapore on 6 October, in Hong Kong on 7 October, in London on 8 October and in the US from 12 to 14 October, according to the person familiar with the schedule.
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