With the yield on US-10-year bond surpassing the psychological 5% mark, domestic companies that opt for foreign currency loans are likely to see higher debt servicing costs going forward.
The strengthening dollar and surging
crude oil prices add fuel to the fire. While the rupee has depreciated 1.6% against the
US dollar over the past three months, oil prices have surged 13.2% during the same period.
While foreign-currency-denominated borrowings normally tend to be cheaper compared to local currency loans, the narrowing spread between the US and Indian
bond yields will bring down cost advantage for many of them.
For instance, the finance cost as a percentage of total debt for BSE500 companies stood at 7.7% at the end of FY23, against 6.6% for companies with some overseas borrowings on their books.
The gross borrowings for BSE500 companies (excluding banks and financials) increased 11% year-on-year to ₹33.04 lakh crore in FY23, data sourced from Ace Equity database shows. Of them, nearly 70 companies had foreign loans on their books, totalling ₹4.4 lakh crore. Additionally, the foreign loans of these 70 companies account for 22.2% of their combined borrowings, which stood at ₹19.6 lakh crore as of March 2023.
The companies with the highest foreign loans in absolute terms include IOCL, ONGC, TATA Motors, NTPC, and Adani Ports & SEZ, among others. While the foreign currency loans account for more than 80% of Jubilant Pharmova and Oil India’s total borrowings in FY23, other companies like Adani Ports and SEZ, Glenmark Pharmaceuticals, and UPL also have borrowed more than 60% from abroad as of March 2023.
India's benchmark bond yield has hovered around 7.3% for the past few days whereas the US yield crossed 5% for the first time since 2007. That has resulted in shrinking the spread between the two notes to 237 basis points (bps), levels last seen in May 2006.
