India’s HDFC Bank to raise $6 billion in debt over next 1 year

BENGALURU (Reuters) – Indian private lender HDFC Bank Ltd said on Tuesday it would consider raising debt of 500 billion rupees (about $6 billion) over the next one year.

The bank will discuss the fund raise at its board meeting on Saturday, when it is also due to report earnings for the January-March quarter.

The proposed fund raise would be by issuing perpetual debt instruments, or Additional Tier-1 (AT-1) bonds, Tier-II capital bonds and long-term bonds, the bank said in an exchange filing.

The fund raising will be on a private placement basis, it said.

The proposed fundraising comes ahead of HDFC Bank’s merger with Housing Development Finance Corp Ltd, which is likely to be completed by the end of June.

In December, HDFC Bank had raised 50 billion rupees via 10-year Basel III-compliant, Tier-II bonds at a coupon of 7.84%.

Last September, it issued Basel III-compliant AT-1 bonds worth 30 billion rupees at a coupon of 7.84%. ($1 = 82.0950 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Nandan Mandayam in Bengaluru and Siddhi Nayak in Mumbai; Editing by Savio D’Souza)