‘M&A hunt to drive India’s offshore bonds rush in 2018’

Bloomberg

Offshore bonds volumes from India are set to gather pace after a banner year as companies tap the lowest borrowing costs in a decade to pay for buying assets locally and abroad.
That’s the view of Citigroup Inc., which forecasts sales of debt denominated in US dollar, euro and yen in 2018 to be as good as last year when issuance totaled $15.6 billion, the highest in three years.
“Banks are talking with more companies now for acquisition and capex funding than in the past two to four years,” said Neville Fernandes, head of debt capital markets for India at
Citigroup. “Several companies are evaluating acquisitions with a wide range of objectives —acquiring global market share and capacity, buying front-end distribution in growth markets, acquiring intellectual property or natural resources as commodity prices rise.”
Indian firms have also become more ambitious globally. Hindalco Industries Ltd. made a non-binding offer through its US unit, Novelis Inc. for US aluminum maker Aleris Corp., people with knowledge of the matter said earlier this month. A deal could value Aleris at about
$2.5 billion including debt, the people said.