India Inc's foreign borrowings in November stood at $488.49 mn

MUMBAI: India Inc raised $488.49 million via External Commercial Borrowings ( ECBs) and Rupee Denominated Bonds (RDBs) in November 2016, as per RBI data.

The Indian companies had raised $3.16 billion from foreign sources in the same month a year ago.

However, the data is not comparable as borrowings through RDBs were included only this year.

The number of companies raising money through ECB route in November 2016 fell to 34 from as high as 53 in November 2015.

The Reserve Bank has allowed Indian companies to tap foreign sources by issuing RDBs from this year and it has started publishing the data on these rupee denominated bonds from September 2016.

Of the total borrowings from overseas markets during November, the companies raised $277.81 million via ECBs, using both the automatic and approval route.

In the ECB category, Kalsubai Shipping & Offshore Pvt Ltd and John Energy Limited raised a total of $41 million by using the approval channel.

The major borrowers in automatic category were: Mytrah Vayu (Tungabhadra) Pvt Ltd's $48.55 million for new project; Maxxis Rubber India Pvt Ltd's $40 million for import of capital goods, and Bekaert Industries Pvt Ltd's $21.62 million for import of capital goods.

Commercial vehicle maker SML Isuzu raised $20.89 million for modernisation work.

The remaining $210.68 million were raised via RDBs by a total of eight companies.

Among the prominent companies issuing RDBs were: Power Finance Corporation ($100 million) for sub-lending, TRL Riceland ($59.15 million) for other propose and Tiaa Global Business Services ($15.69 million) for rupee expenditure.