Herbert Smith Freehills is pleased to announce that it has advised on a US$1 billion dual-tranche note offering by state-run Oil India Limited. The deal is the largest ever bond issue from an Indian public sector enterprise and also the largest ever Reg S-only issuance by an Indian company.
The firm’s team on the transaction, led by Singapore partner Philip Lee, acted for Citi, Deutsche Bank, HSBC, the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and Standard Chartered Bank as joint lead managers.
Listed on the Singapore Exchange, the offering comprised two tranches—a US$500 million 3.875% 5-year tranche and a US$500 million 5.375% 10-year tranche. The offering was oversubscribed approximately 9.2 times making it one of the largest order books for a US dollar-denominated bond offering by an Indian issuer.
Philip was supported by senior associates Gareth Deiner and Preeti Kamat, and associates Jenny Qi, Nupur Kant and Yuji Huang, in Singapore. The transaction also required in-depth Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and Sanctions-related advice, which was provided by global corporate crime and investigations head Kyle Wombolt, who was assisted by senior associate James Dalton and associates Geng Li and Zhang Siyu, in Hong Kong.
Philip commented:
“We are delighted to have assisted Oil India and to have advised the joint lead managers on this incredibly successful benchmark transaction, one that truly demonstrates the fundamental strength of credits in the region. This deal has allowed us to bring our deep experience of executing debt capital markets transactions in India to the fore, and also illustrates the value-add of our integrated service offerings.”
Herbert Smith Freehills has been very active in the Indian debt capital markets space. Last year, the firm advised ANZ, Citi, Deutsche Bank and Standard Chartered Bank on the issue of S$350,000,000 4.25% senior notes by TML Holdings Pte. Ltd., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Tata Motors and the holding company of Jaguar Land Rover PLC, which was the largest-ever five-year Singapore Dollar bond benchmark by an Indian corporate issuer and the largest-ever unrated Singapore Dollar bond by an Indian issuer. Separately, the firm also advised the joint lead managers in respect of Tata Communications’ S$250 million notes issue, the first note issued by a non-bank Indian corporate in the Singapore dollar-denominated capital markets in 2013.
