The country's largest state-owned lender had started the book-building process through its London branch, and had received bids worth over $1 billion, they added. The state-run lender would look to raise at least $500 million via this issue, and could also retain up to $1 billion seeing strong investor appetite, they said.
The 5-year U.S. yield is trading at 3.46%. "The issue may close by the end of today, as the book size has already crossed $1 billion," one of the bankers said.
On Tuesday, SBI mandated Citigroup, Emirates NBD Capital, HSBC, J.P. Morgan, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, and Standard Chartered Bank as joint lead managers to arrange a series of fixed income investor calls in Asia and Europe. S&P Global Ratings and Fitch Ratings have assigned a BBB- rating to the lender's proposed dollar bonds, whose proceeds would be used for general corporate purposes in accordance with applicable law and meeting the funding requirement of the SBI's foreign offices. The bond issue will have a put option if the aggregate of direct and indirect Government of India shareholding falls below 51%.
Last week, the board of SBI approved raising $2 billion through foreign currency bonds in the current financial year through senior unsecured notes in single or multiple tranches. (Reporting by Bhakti Tambe and Dharamraj Dhutia; Editing by Rashmi Aich)
