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Euromoney’s borrower awards 2007 |
| Overall awards | |
| Best sovereign/supranational/agency borrower | Best bank borrower |
| Best insurance borrower | Best ABS |
| Best CDO borrower | Best covered bond issuer |
| Best corporate borrower | Best high-yield/leveraged finance borrower |
| Latin America regional awards | |
| Best sovereign borrower | Best corporate borrower |
| Best financial borrower | |
| Central & Eastern Europe regional awards | |
| Best sovereign borrower | Best corporate borrower |
| Best financial borrower | |
| Asia regional awards | |
| Best sovereign borrower | Best corporate borrower |
| Best financial borrower | |
| Middle East and northern Africa regional awards | |
| Best borrower | |
ICICI Bank is the clear winner of Asia’s best financial borrower award because of an outstanding fund-raising performance that began in earnest in 2006 and has accelerated into this year.
With the Indian economy growing at near double-digit rates, India’s banking sector itself needs to maintain growth momentum. ICICI Bank has led the way, with total asset growth in fiscal 2006 of almost 50% over the previous period. It is that asset growth that ICICI Bank has proved itself so adept at funding.
The bank started its debt issuance in earnest in August with a $340 million hybrid capital issue, callable in 2016, that priced at just 247 basis points over equivalent US treasuries. In October, ICICI printed a $400 million five-year bullet that paid just 5.875%, or 120.6bp over the 2011 US treasury.
In November the group’s UK subsidiary raised £50 million ($98.5 million) by way of a floating-rate note fixed at 1% over six-month Libor, and followed up in December with a further $150 million hybrid capital issue, callable in 2016, that this time priced at 198bp over the 2016 US treasury.
ICICI has also been active in the loans market and even raised $2 billion of equity capital in 2006. However, it is in 2007 that the bank’s fund-raising in the debt markets has taken off.
“By November last year, the issuer had visibility on the strategic funding and capital requirement, which produced the $2 billion three-tranche deal that came in January this year,” says Mark Leahy, head of Asia debt syndicate at Deutsche Bank. “In the last 12 months, this year and last, ICICI has issued over $5 billion in either senior or bank capital. You’ll struggle to find many other issuers in Asia that have had that kind of access to capital markets.”
It is not just because of the sums raised that ICICI earns the award as Asia’s best financial borrower, however, but also because of the manner in which it executed such an ambitious funding programme, as one debt banker explains.
“They’ve done something that no one else has from a standing start,” he says. “Sure, Hutchison may have borrowed more in 2003, but Hutch has always been a big borrower. Before last year, ICICI was a $300 million a year borrower.”
ICICI has been especially smart in tapping a broad range of investors for its funding needs. “Look at how they’ve chosen their markets,” Leahy says. “They’ve done 144A, upper tier 2 and hybrid tier 1, euros and sterling. They’ve been very thoughtful in their approach to the market and quickly moved on from a purely US dollar investor base.”
