Shriram Finance Ltd.

Shriram Transport Finance will raise Rs. 500 crore through debentures with a greenshoe option of Rs. 500 crore. The tenure of the bond will be 3-5 years. The company is waiting for the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) quarterly policy review meeting to decide on the coupon rate. It is expected to be around 11-12%. Corporate bond yields have risen by over 5-10 basis points in the past one month anticipating a rate hike by the RBI.

The three-year ‘AAA’ rated bond is currently trading at 9.67%. Last year, it was trading at 7.16%. The spread for the three-year bond has increased by 150 bps in the past one year. The issue is awaiting regulatory approvals and is expected to be launched by the end of this month. This issue will mostly target retail investors with 80% reserved for retail participants. Shriram Transport is a non-banking finance company (NBFC) which gives loans against used trucks. It has assets worth Rs. 36,000 crore under management.

The issue is rated ‘AA’+ by rating firm Care and ‘AA’ by Crisil. The company now has around 25 % of its bond participation from retail investors. This is the third such issue Shriram Transport has come up with in the past three years. In May 2010, it had raised Rs. 500 crore through debentures with a coupon rate of 10.5%, and 1,000 crore in 2009.

The money raised from this issue will be used to meet its lending requirement. Non-banking finance companies are looking for various avenues to raise funds, after the RBI imposed strict borrowing norms for these companies. The RBI has withdrawn the priority sector status for NBFCs, which means the cost of borrowings for these companies will go up.