The National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) will raise Rs 500 crore through private placement of tax free bonds to part finance its ambitious National Highway Development Project (NHDP), Surface Transport Minister Rajnath Singh said on Saturday in New Delhi.
The NHDP 2000 bonds, which opens on September 11, will have a tenure of seven years and will be exempt from long-term capital gains tax under the newly created section 54 of the Income Tax Act, Singh told reporters.
“SBI capital market, J M Morgan Stanley, ICICI securities,
IDFC, DSP Merrill Lynch, R R Financials and Kotak Mahindra are the lead managers of the bonds issue,” he said, adding that the NHDP bonds will have a lock-in period of three years and will carry a coupon rate of 10.5 per cent.
“The bonds issue, which has been assigned the highest
safety rating of ‘AAA’ by credit rating agency CRISIL, will
have a call or put option after three years, exercisable by
both NHAI and the investor,” he said.
The closing date for the first phase of the issue is
September 19 while the second phase of the issue will open on September 20 and close on October 24, Singh added.
NHAI would raise Rs 13,800 crore through market borrowing
programmes spread over the next four years to part finance the ambitious Rs 58,000 crore NHDP project comprising of
four-laning of over 13,252 kms of national highways.
The remaining part of the project would be funded through
multilateral loans, Re one cess on petrol and diesel and
private investments, he said.
Bureau Report
