New Delhi, May 17: Power Finance Corporation (PFC) is planning to come out with its maiden Rs 600 crore public bonds issue before the polls scheduled to be held in September.This is part of the Rs 2,000 crore resource mobilisation programme planned by PFC during the current financial year for funding requirements of various power utilities, corporation sources said.When contacted, PFC chairman and managing director Uddesh Kohli said, "We are looking at the market and would go for the public bond issue once the conditions are favourable."Though the primary public issue market is yet to pick up, the secondary share market is having one of the bull runs in recent times gaining over 400 points in last few trading sessions.The corporation is now waiting for rating of the issue by Crisil, which is likely to be given by the end of this month, sources said.Meanwhile, PFC has appointed SBI Caps to give an appraisal report of the issue, PFC director finance TN Thakur said.The corporation is likely toapproach the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) next month for the public bond issue, Thakur said. "We would need a preparatory time of three months before going in for such an issue and the market also has to be a favourable one," Thakur said. PFC had earlier deferred its public bond issue in 1998 as the corporation was able to mop up resources from the commercial banks at lower rates of interest, sources said.The corporation was in a position to raise resources from the domestic market at an interest rate of about 14 per cent, they said adding that a public issue would have cost at least 100 basis over this. PFC, which exclusively caters to the requirements of power utilities, is planning to mobilise Rs 2,000 crore during the current financial year.The corporation is planning to raise about $250 million (about Rs 1,000 crore) from the overseas markets through external commercial borrowing route (ECB), the Sources said.PFC has already approached a dozen banks, including SBI, CitiBank,Bank of America, ING Barings, ABN Amro and HSBC, to raise about 100 million dollars with a green shoe option of 50 million dollars through ECBs.PFC is also talking to about eight to 10 national banks including SBI, Punjab National Bank, Bank of Baroda, Jammu and Kashmir Bank and Indian Overseas Bank for raising funds domestically. PFC plans to maintain growth rate of 30 per cent to achieve disbursement of over Rs 5,000 crore by 2001-02.
