NTPC has signed a term loan agreement for ₹5,000 crore with State Bank of India. A company statement said that the loan facility has been extended at an interest rate linked to 3-month MCLR of the bank and has a door-to-door tenure of 15 years. The loan will be utilised to part finance the capital expenditure of NTPC.
In March this year, the company had raised $450 million (over ₹3,000 crore) through a 5-year bond offering in the international markets. This issuance was under the $6 billion (over ₹43,000 crore) Medium Term Note (MTN) programme. Later in July, NTPC raised ₹4,300 crore through bonds, which were to be used for capital expenditure and general corporate requirement.
In August, the group got shareholders’ nod to raise up to ₹15,000 crore through issuance of bonds and to raise its borrowing limit to ₹2 lakh crore.
There was some troubling news for NTPC in November when Moody’s Investor Service revised its rating outlook to ‘Negative’ from ‘Stable,’ while retaining the investment rating.