Mumbai, April 28 (Representative) India’s largest public sector bank, State Bank of India, acting through its London Branch, on Friday priced a 5-year US$750 million bond issuance at a coupon rate of 4.875 per cent. The bonds are benchmarked against 5 year US treasury and priced at a spread of 145 bp over the benchmark. The bonds were issued under SBI’s MTN Programme and will be listed on Singapore SGX and the India INX, Gift City. The Notes are expected to carry a final rating of BBB- and BBB- from Standard & Poor’s and Fitch respectively. The issuance received an overwhelming response and saw strong interest from investors across geographies with a final order book in excess of USD 2.9 billion across 181 accounts.
On the back of strong demand, the order booked peaked at USD 5.4 billion, making room for the guidance to be revised from T+185 area to T+145. The successful issuance demonstrates the strong investor base SBI has created for itself in offshore capital markets, allowing it to efficiently raise funds from world’s leading fixed income investors, even during periods of heightened volatility. Commenting on the occasion, Dinesh Khara, Chairman, SBI said “The successful issue highlights SBI’s strong investor base in offshore capital markets, which enables it to effectively raise funds from the world’s leading fixed income investors, especially during moments of increased volatility and uncertainty. This demonstrates global investors’ confidence in the Indian banking sector in general, and in SBI in particular, and it also attests to SBI’s unparalleled access to global capital markets”. Citigroup, Emirates NBD Capital, HSBC, J.P. Morgan, MUFG and Standard Chartered Bank acted as Joint Global Coordinators and Joint Lead Managers for this offering.