Sidley has advised HPCL-Mittal Energy Limited (HMEL) on its maiden issuance of US$375 million of Senior Unsecured Notes due 2027, the proceeds of which will be used to repay HMEL’s outstanding external commercial borrowings. During the book building window, the order book was five times oversubscribed. Strong investor interest enabled HMEL to increase the issuance to US$375 million from their initial indication of US$300 million. The offering had over 150 investors participating, with Asian investors accounting for 71% and European investors accounting for 24% of the issuance. According to the Economic Times, the issuance achieved the lowest yield rate by a high-yield category company this year. In addition, the transaction qualified under the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s Asian Bond Grant Scheme, a strategy launched with the intention of further developing Singapore’s bond market. The bonds received a BB- rating from Fitch and a Ba2 rating, one notch lower than investment grade, from Moody’s.

HMEL is a joint venture between Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited and Mittal Energy Investments Pte Ltd, and owns and operates the tenth single largest petroleum refining complex in India.

The multi-office Sidley team was comprised of partners Matthew Sheridan (Singapore), Manoj Bhargava (Singapore) and David Howe (London), counsel Ankit Kashyap (Singapore) and Stephen Charest (Singapore), and associates Varun Jetly (Singapore), Alexius Chong (Singapore) and Raveen Dhaliwal (London), with support from legal assistant Nithya Swaminathan (Singapore). HMEL was advised as to matters of Indian law by Prashant Gupta and Monal Mukherjee of Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas & Co.