India’s Jio Finance debut bond issue to hit markets by next week, sources say — TradingView News #IndiaFinance

India’s Jio Finance will open its debut corporate bond issue by next week after earlier delaying a planned issuance in March, two sources aware of the plan said on Tuesday.

The company, a wholly-owned unit of Jio Financial Services Jiofinplans to raise up to 10 billion rupees ($118.55 million), through the sale of bonds maturing in two years and 10 months.

The company is expecting to pay an annual coupon of around 7.19%, which is sharply lower than what it was willing to pay for a five-year bond issue in March, one of the sources, directly aware of the deal, said.

The notes are rated AAA by Crisil and Care.

The sources requested anonymity as they are not authorised to speak to the media. Jio Finance did not immediately reply to a Reuters email for comment.

Corporate bond yields in India have dropped sharply over the past two months as the central bank cut the benchmark policy rate by 50 basis points and infused over 6.2 trillion rupees in liquidity into the banking system between January-April.

This has pulled down yields on corporate bonds rated ‘AAA’ by 30-40 basis points since the start of April.

“The rate is sharply lower, than what it would have had to pay towards the end of the last financial year, had it gone ahead with the issue back then,” the source mentioned above said.

Jio Finance is a non-deposit taking, non-banking financial company. In March, the firm had issued its maiden commercial paper (CP) issue and raised 10 billion rupees at a yield of 7.80%.

($1 = 84.3530 Indian rupees)