India Inc's loans soar to $8.3bn

Corporate India has raised over 8 billion dollars through syndicated loans by way of 33 deals in the first half of this year led by Reliance Industries, which alone mopped up a whopping 2.7 billion dollars.

"Syndicated loans volume of India Inc was at 8.3 billion dollar for the first half of this calendar year, witnessing a steady growth over previous year figure of 8.1 billion dollar through 41 deals," global consulting firm Dealogic said.

Corporate behemoth RIL single handedly raised 2.7 billion dollar by syndicated loans through three deals with a consortium of 26 banks in the first six months of this year. Homegrown major Tata Group raised 400 million dollar, British mobile giant Vodafone and largest lender State Bank of India both mopped up 300 million dollar each, while HDFC gathered 285 million dollar through syndicated loans.

Syndicated loan refers to a large sum of funds provided by a group of banks collectively to a borrower. There is usually one lead bank that takes a percentage of the loan and syndicates the rest to other banks.

Other firms among top ten borrowers from India were - realty player Emmar MGF Land, Horizon India BV, Cheung Kong Holdings, Havell's Netherland NV and Jaiprakash Associates.

Besides, the textile sector generated 2.2 billion dollars accounting for 26.9 per cent of total Indian loan volume in first half of 2007, followed by the construction or building sector with total proceeds of 1.6 billion dollars.

Global financing major Citigroup topped the chart of book runners with volume of 974 million dollar through four deals amounting to a market share of 11.7 per cent. Standard Chartered followed suit with a volume of 667 million dollar by way of eight deals representing 8 per cent share of the market.