JSW Steel is planning to raise $ 600 million through overseas borrowings during the April-June quarter to refinance part of its rupee loan.
The company has signed firm termsheets (or in principle agreements) for half of the amount so far, JSW Steel's Joint Managing Director and CFO Seshagiri Rao MVS told the news agency.
“So far we have signed firm termsheets for around $300 million out of a total of $ 600 million which we are going to refinance... May be early next financial year, in the first quarter we should be able to do that (refinance part of rupee loans),” he said.
Noting that interest costs on foreign borrowings are much less than on rupee loans, Rao said that JSW Steel would be able to save about Rs 300 crore on its total interest outgo post refinancing. For this, the company has sought approval of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) as it wants to avail a facility, provided by the apex bank in June last year, to domestic manufacturing and infrastructure companies on refinancing rupee loans through foreign currency loans.According to this, the eligible firms can raise up to $10 billion foreign currency loans based on weighted average of exports in the last three years to repay their rupee loans.The companies would be eligible for the external commercial borrowings only after meeting certain conditions and will require.