BoB raises Rs 5,000 crore from infra bond issue

New Delhi: State-owned Bank of Baroda (BoB) on Monday announced that it has raised Rs 5,000 crore through a 10-year infrastructure bond issuance subscribed by domestic investors.

This is the second issuance from the lender in a fortnight after the Rs 5,000 crore sale on August 26 and comes amid a raft of such issuances.

Banks have become more aggressive at tapping into such avenues given the slower deposit growth in the system.

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The bank was able to squeeze the pricing of the newest offering to 7.26 percent, 0.04 percent lower than its last one, officials said, adding this is the tightest pricing for an issuance in recent times.

Both the issuances were oversubscribed nearly three times, and it was investor feedback on missing out at the last issuance that prompted the bank to come back with another offering sooner.

With the latest issuance, the bank has exhausted the board's approved limit to raise Rs 10,000 crore from infra bond issuances and there are no immediate plans to raise more, the official said.

The bank, however, has a headroom to raise up to Rs 7,500 crore from either additional tier-I or tier-II bonds, and will be tapping the markets for the same.

In the latest issue, the bank got 105 bids totalling Rs 14,215 crore, of which Rs 5,000 crore were accepted, as per a statement.

Allotment of the bonds took place on Monday, and the investors in the latest issuance include mutual fund, insurers and pension funds.

Asked about the pricing, the official explained that money mobilized from deposits attracts mandatory statutory liquidity ratio and cash reserve ratio requirements, and hence, the funds come up to 0.65 per cent cheaper in a bond issuance.

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