Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) on Monday said that it received “overwhelming response from the investors” over its bond issue. The state-run operator made its first ever issue on Monday and is said to have successfully raised Rs 8500 crores by issuing bonds on private placement basis using BSE BOND platform. In a separate release, BSE said that BSNL received 229 bids for Rs 17,183.10 crores on its BSE BOND platform. The government guaranteed bonds issued by BSNL is said to have a 10 year maturity period and is part of the BSNL revival package announced by the government of India in October, 2019.
BSNL Raises Rs 8500 Crores by Issuing Bonds
BSNL in its release highlighted that the issue was oversubscribed by 2.02 times of the total issue and over 17 times of the base issue size of Rs 1000 crores. “This is the largest government guaranteed bonds issue in recent times, which received such an overwhelming response,” BSNL said in its release. It has been said that the bonds are being planned to be listed on BSE soon and that the bonds will be used for debt refinancing and meeting the capital expenditure requirement of BSNL. “BSE BOND platform helps corporates to raise debt capital in the transparent and efficient way and is glad to be associated with fund raising by companies to uplift the growth of the Indian economy,” Shri Girish Joshi, chief trading operations and listing sales at BSE, said in the release.
Qualified Investors Including ICICI Lombard, SBI Life Insurance Subscribed to BSNL Bonds
While BSNL is said to have accepted offers at an interest rate of 6.79%, some bidders are said to have quoted an higher interest rate of 6.9%. “We have received 229 bids and Rs 3,700 crore were subscribed by qualified institutional investors such as ICICI Lombard, Punjab & National Bank, Postal Life Insurance, and SBI Life Insurance,” BSNL Chairman Pravin Kumar Purwar said. It has to be noted that the BSNL revival package announced by the Indian government in October, 2019, also included Voluntary Retirement Scheme (VRS) for the employees aged 50 and above. Further, the revival package also included the allotment of 4G spectrum and monetisation of land assets.
