The challenge:

With its acquisition of telecom operator Zain’s Africa operations in 2010, Bharti Airtel inherited multi-faceted complexities. The change in the complexity paradigm for the operator included moving from being a marginal net debt company (in March 2010 net debt stood at $530m) to having a net debt of circa $11.5 billion as of June 2014, and from a company having exposure to a single currency pair of USD-INR, to managing the exposure across 17 currency pairs, including exotics.

In order to better manage its acquisition debt, the company was looking to opportunistically lengthen the tenor of its debt as well as diversify from being solely dependent on bank credit facilities.

The solution:

To achieve these objectives the company undertook a series of opportunistic debt capital issuances totalling $5.3 billion, in three different currencies over a 15-month time span (early 2013/mid 2014). The company used an astute pricing strategy to ensure tightening yield via an enthusiastic participation from real money investors across the globe.

Bharti Airtel also ensured a post-launch tightening of all bond issuances ensuring sustained interest of diverse and high-quality investors and strengthening of Bharti Airtel as an issuer of credit in the global debt capital markets. In doing so the company was able to refinance the acquisition of Zain and free up bank lines.

Best practice and innovation:

Bharti’s capital market issuance featured a number of firsts in the bond markets. Its USD bond and tap was the first ever Indian telecom company issuance and the biggest single-tranche international bond issued by a telecom company in Asia, excluding Japan, since 2001, while its dualtranche USD and EUR bond made Bharti the first Asian telecom player and first ever Indian issuer to do a dual-currency issuance.

The various capital market issuances carried out by Bharti Airtel had numerous other highlights, some of them are as follows:

• USD inaugural bond and tap

  • One of the largest order books for an Asian USD bond issuance – peaking at $9.5 billon (9.5x oversubscribed).

  • First tap issuance out of India in 2013 making it the largest single-tranche issuance in 2013.

• Euro bond and tap

  • First EUR bond issuance by an emerging market telecom corporate.

  • First EUR bond issuance by an Indian corporate and the first EUR transaction by an Indian issuer since SBI’s €750m issuance in 2010.

• Swiss franc bond

  • Largest ever CHF bond issuance from India.

  • First CHF bond issuance by a private Indian issuer.

• Dual-tranche bond; USD and EUR

  • Dual currency issuance of over $2 billion is also the largest ever fund raising exercise by an Indian issuer in a day.

  • Combined order-book of circa $16 billion is the largest order-book ever for an Indian issuance.

This entry formed part of Bharti Airtel’s submission in the Top Treasury Team Asia category in which they were awarded Winner – please see page ten. However, due to the nature of debt management illustrated, our judging panel felt they deserved separate recognition in the Best Financing Solution category too.