India Inc debt raising hits near record at $57 billion in 2014: report

Mumbai: Primary bond offerings by domestic issuers rose by 2.7 per cent to USD 56.9 billion in 2014 from USD 55.4 billion a year ago, clocking the second best performance since the record USD 63.6 billion mop-up in 2012.      

The year saw domestic companies tapping the offshore US dollar-denominated bond markets reach a record USD 14.5 billion, up 21.4 per cent over USD 12 billion in the previous year, according to the data compiled by Thomson Reuters/  Freeman Consulting. The financial sector issuers led the chart with 63 per cent of the market share mopping up USD 34.9 billion, up 2.9 per cent from last year. This is the highest for the sector since 2012 when amount reached to USD 45.9 billion.      

This was followed by the energy & power sector issuers, with USD 9.5 billion in mop-up or 16.7 per cent of the total  issuance, which though is down 5.9 per cent from 2013's record   high worth USD 10.1 billion. The third slot is with telecoms and industrials with 6.9 per cent and 4.2 per cent market share, respectively.    

Meanwhile, the rupee bond sales touched record levels since 2012 at Rs 2,533.9 billion in 2014, up 3.7 per cent. In 2012 the proceeds reached a record high of Rs 2,896.3 billion. Again the financial sector accounted for the majority share of the rupee bond sales at 67.4 per cent with Rs 1,706.2 billion with as many as 421 issues. This was 9.7 per cent more than the proceeds from 2013 at Rs 1,555.2 billion.      

Issuance by the energy & power sector players topped the list after financials with 12.4 per cent market share or Rs 313.2 billion in proceeds, which though was down 28 per cent from 2013. Government and public agencies tapped the  rupee bond market raising Rs 143.3 billion in proceeds, a massive 188.6 per cent increase from the previous year, according to the report.      

Rupee-denominated bonds accounted for 7.1 per cent of Asia's local currency bonds market at USD 585.3 billion in 2014, while Chinese yuan topped the list with 42 per cent. Axis Bank topped the ranking for domestic bonds underwritings in 2014 with 12.6 per cent of the market share in with related proceeds of USD 7.2 billion from 166 deals.      

On the total fee front from capital raising through bond issuance generated USD 138.5 million in the year, a 56.1 per cent increase from last year. With estimated fees of USD 18.7 million, Deutsche Bank India took the lead for India bonds fee ranking, capturing 13.5 per cent market share of the fee pool.