Lodha Group's British arm launches £174m bond issue

INDIAN realty firm Lodha Group's British subsidiarity has launched a $225 million or £174m bond issue in the Singapore market.

The latest move by the UK arm of the Mumbai based group is aimed at refinancing part of its outstanding debt.

The bonds will be listed on Singapore exchanges.

JP Morgan, UBS and CLSA are the merchant bankers for the issue.

The market response will decide the closing date of the bond issue which has been opened as part of the company’s new strategy, the company sources said.

Lodha Developers International proposes to offer $225m aggregate principal of senior secured notes maturing in 2023.

Lodha Developers International is an arm of Macrotech Developers; earlier it was Lodha Developers,

Macrotech Developers is India's largest residential real estate developer by sales and construction area.

Abhishek Lodha, MD and CEO, Macrotech Developers said: "Earlier this week, we raised £86m in the UK. With these proceeds and additional cash flows from our UK and India businesses, we look forward to fully repaying our 2020 $bonds in March 2020”.

In November 2019, Lodha had said it had arranged $325m to repay bonds maturing in March 2020 through the infusion of funds from promoters, sale of commercial properties and refinancing against unsold inventories in London projects.

The company has clocked net new sales of over Rs 70bn in 2018-19 with collections of over Rs 90bn.

It delivered over 10,000 offices and homes in the financial year 2018-19.

In the first nine months of 2019-20, sales have reached around Rs 50bn, up 15 per cent from the corresponding period of the previous year.

India business debt of the realty group is around Rs 150bn or £1.62bn.

Lodha group entered into the London market in 2013 with the acquisition of the landmark MacDonald House at 1 Grosvenor Square in Prime Central London for over £300m.