NEW DELHI: To clean up its gigantic debt book, Air India Assets Holding Ltd (AIAHL), a special purpose vehicle (SPV) on Monday raised Rs 7,000 crore through issuance of bonds.
A little over half of the airline’s total debt of more than Rs 58,000 crore will be transferred to this SPV and would be serviced by raising money through bonds.
The current raising of Rs 7,000 crore will be followed by another bond issue for Rs 15,064 crore later this month. The remaining debt of Rs 7,400 crore will be transferred, a senior Air India (AI) official said. The SPV is created to take on Rs 29,464 crore of the airline’s massive debt.
An AI spokesperson said AIAHL’s bond issue with a three-year tenure of Rs 1,000 crore with a green shoe option of Rs 6,000 crore has been fully subscribed at 6.99 per cent.
“The company received bids worth Rs 20,830 crore, which is the highest in the yield based bond market in the history of BSE. The company has decided to accept the entire issue of Rs 7,000 crore,” the spokesperson added.
Raising of funds and fast processing its exercise to clean the national carrier’s balance sheet comes at a time when the government is looking to sell off its stake.
The second round of divestment process of the carrier is expected to kicks off shortly. It is rumoured that the government is willing to remove terms and conditions which made the first round a failed process.