Private Placements Rise For Second Straight Week

Private placement of rupee-denominated corporate bonds rose for a second straight week as offerings from Reliance Group boosted volumes. Reliance Industries Ltd. tapped the local-currency bond market after a gap of more than seven years, and raised Rs 7,500 crore via 3-year and 5-year notes to refinance existing borrowings.

Reliance Utilities & Power, part of Reliance Group, also raised Rs 2,250 crore via 9 series of bonds. Bloomberg data showed, Indian companies borrowed a total of Rs 18,500 crore via 16 deals this week versus Rs 9,840 from eight trades last week.

In an interesting trend, India’s top investment-grade borrowers are making a shift from the nation’s bank loan market to rupee corporate bonds as the RBI tries to ease the ballooning bad assets problem in the banking system.