Manappuram Finance plans to tap the public markets next month with a ₹1,000 crore non-convertible debenture (NCD) issue, VP Nandakumar, Managing Director & CEO, said.

“The proposed public issue of NCDs will come after a gap of two years. In the last two years, we had not raised any NCDs from the public,” Nandakumar told BusinessLine here.

He was in the capital for the presentation of the first VC Padmanabhan Memorial Lifetime Achievement Award to former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh by former President Pranab Mukherjee.

Speaking to BusinessLine on the sidelines of the function, Nandakumar said that the proposed NCDs will have a tenure of three and five years.

“These are times when interest rates are going up. To ensure that we have better liquidity, we plan to raise about ₹1,000 crore. We don’t as such have any liquidity constraints,” he said.

Nandakumar said that Manappuram Finance was “heavily capitalised”, well above regulatory requirements. He also said that this non-banking finance company continued to raise money through three routes — banks, commercial paper and NCDs. For NCDs, private placements are also being undertaken with institutions.

“As much as 60 per cent of our funding requirements are coming from banks; 20 per cent from commercial papers; and 20 per cent from NCDs,” he said.

Branch expansion

In the current fiscal, Manappuram Finance — a non-deposit-taking systemically important NBFC — plans to add 200 new branches, of which about 100 will come up in North and Eastern India, Nandakumar said.

Currently, Manappuram has about 3,500 branches, of which only about 20 per cent are in North India.

He also said the demand for gold loans is quite robust and that he expected a 15 per cent compounded annual growth rate for the company in that portfolio this year.

Education financing

Manappuram Finance also plans to infuse about ₹100 crore primary capital in the Delhi-based India School Finance Company Ltd, a niche player in education finance.

“We had entered into a binding MoU for acquisition of a 90 per cent stake in India School Finance Company. We hope to get RBI approval in the next 2-3 weeks,” Nandakumar said.

comment COMMENT NOW