Tata Steel launches $750 mn syndicated loan in Taipei
Business Standard — August 25, 2006

Tata Steel launched its syndicated term loan of $750 million at a road show in Taipei today. Company officials said the fund raising had been fully subscribed to by participating banks including lead arrangers. The company has mandated - Standard Chartered Bank, ABN-AMRO Bank NV, Citigroup Global Markets Singapore Pte Ltd., Calyon, Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ Ltd., First Commercial Bank Ltd., Maybank, Mizhuo Corporate Bank and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation Ltd - as lead arrangers to raise the loan.

The loan has a seven-year door-to-door maturity with an all-in pricing at 54 basis points over Libor. S&P has reaffirmed a corporate credit rating of BBB for Tata Steel and assigned the same to the loan as well. Apart from the current fund raising, Tata Steel has raised $100 million from IFC, $300 million as part of an IFC-led syndication and Japanese yen equivalent of $500 million syndicated loan facility in the last 18 months. The funds raised under the loan would be deployed towards Tata Steel's expansion programme and any future acquisitions.

As part of the future expansion, Tata Steel plans to establish three greenfield facilities in Orissa, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand, with a total capacity of 23 million tonne. The company had earlier said that greenfield projects and other strategic acquisition opportunities could see Tata Steel making a total investment of Rs 70,000 crore over the next decade.