Barclays Bank, Aditya Birla Finance and a fund owned by National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF) have provided a ₹1,000-crore debt facility to Delhi International Airport Ltd (DIAL), people aware of the transaction said.
The trio invested in five-year bonds of the GMR Group-promoted company wherein 9.52% coupon would be paid for the first three years and 9.98% for the remaining two years, they said.
Barclays Bank invested Rs 500 crore, Aditya Birla Finance invested Rs 150 crore, and Aseem Infrastructure Finance, an NIIF fund, invested Rs 350 crore, they said. Barclays confirmed the development. GMR, Aditya Birla Finance and Aseem Infrastructure did not respond to the request for comments.
ICRA Ratings had assigned an A+ rating to the Rs 1,000-crore bonds on May 27. According to the information memorandum, DIAL \must pay a 25 basis point higher coupon if the credit rating is downgraded below ‘A’. However, there is no step up if the rating is lowered by one notch from ‘A+’ to ‘A’.
DIAL had raised ₹3,257 crore in rupee bonds at 10.96% by the end of March 2021 due to a significant decline in the internal accruals caused by the Covid-related disruptions. Proceeds from the latest debt facility would be used to finance the increase in interest payments during construction, resulting from revised capex timelines and one-time drawdown estimated at ₹950-1,000 crore of the bond raised in March 2021, ICRA said.
GMR Infrastructure in a statement on Monday had said the proceeds of the bonds would be used to part-finance phase 3A expansion programme of the airport.
GMR Infrastructure’s latest annual report for FY21 stated that Phase 3A expansion includes expansion of Terminal 1 and Terminal 3, construction of a fourth runway along with enhancement of airfields, and construction of taxiways, which will expand the capacity of Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport to 100 million passengers annually.
GMR Infrastructure holds a 51% stake in GMR Airports, which in turn holds a 64% stake in DIAL. Airports Authority India has 26% stake in the airport while Fraport AG Frankfurt Airport Services Worldwide (Fraport) holds the remaining 10%.
ICRA had stated that DIAL is exposed to high refinancing risk given that it has a large bullet repayment of Rs 3,257 crore falling due in 2025-26, Rs 3,494 crore due in FY27 Rs 1,000 crore in FY28, and Rs 3,500 crore in FY30.
