Greenko Group receives $743 million credit line to refinance dollar bonds

Greenko and NaBFID did not immediately respond to Bloomberg’s emailed requests for comment outside normal business hours on Saturday. Photo: Bloomberg

2 minutes of reading Last updated: Jul 07, 2024 | 22:22 IST

By Saikat Das

Greenko Group has secured a 62 billion rupee ($743 million) credit line from India’s National Infrastructure and Development Finance Bank to partially refinance its foreign debt, people familiar with the matter said.

The clean energy company, backed by Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund GIC, will use a newly approved credit line to refinance two sets of dollar bonds due in January and July 2025, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the information is private. The payouts will be made in tranches, they said.

Greeko will seek to reduce its dollar-denominated debt, which it sees as expensive compared with local-currency loans, one of the people said. The loans are priced to the NaBFID lending rate and have multiple maturities, ranging up to 23 years.

Greenko has significant financing needs for its pumped-storage projects, including $1.25 billion in restricted-access group bonds due in the first half of next year and a possible debt refinancing of close to $1 billion in Sikkim Urja, according to Sharon Chen, a credit analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence. “It could have good access to domestic funds for the debt backed by the project,” she said in the analysis.

NaBFID, as the government-backed infrastructure lender is called, focuses on long-term financing of infrastructure needs and is a key part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s economic growth agenda.

Greenko is one of India’s leading renewable energy companies with a net installed capacity of 7.5 gigawatts across 15 Indian states, according to its website.

Greenko and NaBFID did not immediately respond to Bloomberg’s request for comment, sent via email outside business hours on Saturday.

First published: Jul 07, 2024 | 22:03 IST