NTPC's tax-free bond issue to open on Tuesday

National Thermal Power Corp (NTPC), the country's largest power producer, will enter the market on Tuesday with a bond issue to raise up to Rs1,750 crore.

The first bond issue of the state-run power producer in 20 years, the sale will close on 16 December.

"The issue will open on 3 December 2013, and is scheduled to close on 16 December, 2013," NTPC CMD Arup Roy Choudhury said.

The company has proposed to issue tax-free secured redeemable non-convertible bonds of a total value of Rs1,000 crore, with an option to retain oversubscription of up to Rs750 crore.

"The base issue size aggregates to Rs1,000 crore with an option to retain over-subscription of up to Rs750 crore for issuance of additional bonds, aggregating to up to Rs 1,750 crore," the company said.

The company proposes to utilise the proceeds  of the issue for meeting capital expenditure and refinancing of debt of ongoing projects.

NTPC had, in October, filed a prospectus with the Registrar of Companies (RoC), Delhi and Haryana and is expected to have filed the prospectus with the BSE, NSE and SEBI (Securities and Exchange Board of India) in this connection.

ICICI Securities, A K Capital Services, Axis Capital, SBI Capital Markets and Kotak Mahindra Capital Company are lead managers to the issue.

NTPC has an installed capacity of nearly 42,000 MW and has plans to add about 14,000 MW to its total capacity by the end of 2016-17.