ICICI bond issue, Tata-Corus, Vodafone-Essar acquisitions ranked as Asia's top 3 deals in 2007 by CFO Asia
26 Dec 2007
New Delhi: ICICI Bank's $2-billion bond issue, Tata Steel's takeover of Corus Plc and Vodafone's acquisition of Hutchison's stake in Hutch-Essar and have been named as Asia`s top three deals in 2007 by Economist group publication CFO Asia.
The magazine noted that ICICI Bank, the winner of its "Asia`s best deals of the year awards", which had issued a $750 million five-year bond issue in January 2007, returned to the market in September with Asia's largest single-tranche issue of $2 billion with a 237.5-basis points interest rate above the US Treasury's, substantially above the 174.8 basis points for the January issue.
The global bond offering that opened week after the US Federal Reserve cut interest rates by 50 basis points closed the same day, oversubscribed three times. The magazine notes that this deal helped to revive Asian bond markets and was followed by other companies raising more than $2 billion through bond offerings.
