India Inc raised $3.55 billion from overseas market in March

MUMBAI: Indian companies including IOC, Air India and IDFC raised a total $3.55 billion in March from overseas markets, data from RBI showed.

Domestic firms had raised a higher $4.3 billion through external commercial borrowings ( ECBs) and foreign currency convertible bonds ( FCCBs) in the previous month.

As per the data from RBI, the borrowings by domestic companies through ECB and FCCBs were a combination of automatic and approval route.

The companies raised as much as $1.36 billion through approval route during the month, while $2.17 billion were raised by the way of automatic route.

Through the approval route, Indian Oil Corporation raised $810 million for overseas acquisition and Intel Technology India raised $150 million for import of capital goods.

Public carrier, Air India Ltd raised $99 million each in two separate tranches for import of capital goods through the approval route, while Dewan Housing Finance Corporation Ltd raised $70 million for on-lending/sub-lending.

In the automatic route category, Export-Import Bank (Exim Bank) and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation raised $500 million each for sub-lending and working capital purpose respectively. IDFC Ltd raised $300 million for sub-lending.

Among others raising money through automatic route, Sterling Biotech raised $206.46 million for refinancing of earlier ECB and Bharat Petroleum Corp raised $198.58 million for working capital needs.

India's ECB in the entire fiscal 2013-14 stood at $33.25 billion.