Spic FRNs rolled over for five years
Chennai: The Rs 2,800-crore agri-business major, Spic, has successfully restructured its $120- million floating rate notes issue with the consent of investors, which included Indian banks. At the extraordinary general meeting held in London on Wednesday, an extraordinary resolution for the offer to exchange (the notes) and consent soliciation was passed with 100 per cent vote in favour of the resolution.

Accordingly, the investors have now agreed for a five-year roll over of the notes from now onwards on the interest rate of 1.5 per cent over Libor which is less than one per cent of the originally contracted rate.
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Citigroup launches CitiFinancial services
Chennai: Citigroup has entered the retail financial services segment to exclusively cater to the middle market segments and launched CitiFinancial Retail Services in India. CitiFinancial initially came into being after Citigroup acquired 76 per cent equity in SAK Group’s Nationwide Finance in March 2000 for a consideration of Rs 13 crore. At the time of acquisition, it had a portfolio size of Rs.10-12 crore and six branches.
The new Citigroup arm is expected to focus on the "underbanked and underserviced" segments to market its financial products, with average loan size of Rs 15,000-20,000. The company is looking at a customer base of 3 lakh by 2002 by focusing on providing loans for consumer durables, PCs, 2-wheelers and scale them up to market credit cards, insurance products and personal loans. CitiFinancial will also cross-sell other Citigroup products including credit cards.
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Deutsche Bank to offer portfolio advisory services in India
New Delhi: Deutsche Bank, a German banking major has obtained the approval from the Securities & Exchange Board of India (Sebi) to offer portfolio advisory services to its clients in the country. The Deutsche Bank will offer personal financial planning, investment counselling and estate management to high net worth individuals on a non-discretionary basis.
The licence from Sebi is valid for a period of three years. Deutsche Bank offers private banking through more than 18 centres in 11 Asia-Pacific countries along with a range of financial products. The bank is one of the world's largest financial institutions with assets of more than 840 billion euros and a global presence in over 60 countries.
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Crisil AA+ rating for BILT's debt instruments
Kolkata: Crisil has assigned the maiden rating of AA+ in the new category to the Rs 150 lakh structured debt obligation of Ballarpur Industries. The rating is based on a partial guarantee extended by International Finance Corporation (IFC) to the BILT issue.

The rating indicates high safety with regards to timely payment of interest and principal on the SDO. The proposed issue has tenure of 10 years comprising semi annual interest and principal repayments. IFC’s partial guarantee has 2 components: First, a rolling guarantee for 2 semi-annual installment of interest and principal payments. Second, a back ended guaranteed principal payments aggregate of Rs 110 crore. The structure also provides for an early redemption of the SDO by the trustee or IFC, in case BILT is unable to make payment of interest or principal on the issue.
Rating of partially guaranteed a debt instrument is a relatively new concept and Crisil is reported to have developed a new methodology rating such debt instruments. Partially guaranteed debt instruments have been lately in demand from Indian corporate sector with its inherent advantage in addressing the credit risk concerns of the lenders.
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