Piramal Capital raises $100-million social loan
Piramal Capital & Housing Finance raises $100 million social loan pre-funded by Standard Chartered Bank. The loan, benchmarked to SOFR, will support affordable housing, MSME business loans, and other social causes. The lender aims for 15% AUM growth in FY25 and plans to expand the retail business.
& raised its maiden dollar syndicated of $100 million (₹835 crore). The entire loan is pre-funded by and the foreign lender is expected to syndicate the loan in the next few months.The loan has a three-year maturity, and it is benchmarked to the three-month secured overnight financing rate (SOFR) plus 200 basis points. The prevailing SOFR is 5.3%. "Through this loan, we are trying to tap the overseas market and since a large part of our financing gels well with the social theme, this loan is the first of many to come," a Standard Chartered Bank official said on condition of anonymity. "All highly-rated NBFCs have to start looking at some amount of financing from the international markets and this route is expected to pick up pace. In fact, there is a lot of global investor appetite for ."
Standard Chartered Bank is the social loan coordinator for this transaction and the sole mandated lead arranger, underwriter and book-runner.
Social loans are used to fund projects that have a social cause, like a welfare project, affordable homes or environmentally sustainable projects among others.
The fund raised is a secured term loan, and the proceeds will be used for lending in , , , and other eligible products as per the .
"We largely cater to the Bharat market with a considerable affordable housing portfolio, along with our focus on loans to women entrepreneurs; this ESG loan will go well with our business focus," said the official cited above.
Last month, raised more than $450 million through a syndicated term loan. The funds were raised as a social loan to empower small entrepreneurs and vulnerable groups across India.
Piramal Finance has a customer base of 4.1 million. Its assets under management (AUM) in the retail business recently crossed ₹50,000 crore, driven by strong growth in mortgages, unsecured loans, and used car loans.
Mortgage loans, comprising home and small business loans, account for 68% of the overall retail AUM. Such loans grew at a robust 38% in FY24. The lender expects 15% AUM growth in FY25 to around ₹80,000 crore. It also has plans to expand the retail business to 75% of the total book, with wholesale lending forming the rest 25%. As of March-end, the retail book accounted for 70% at about ₹48,000 crore and the wholesale book at 30%.
Source: Stocks-Markets-Economic Times
