Finance Minister AMA Muhith, Prime Minister’s Energy Advisor Dr Tawfiq-e-Elahi Chowdhury and State Minister for Power and Energy Nasrul Hamid were present at the contract signing ceremony held at InterContinental Dhaka in the city.
Under the contracts, the banks and institutions will purchase APSCL bonds worth Tk 415 crore for a seven-year period. Each unit of bonds will value Tk 5,000 and each lot will have 2,000 units of bonds which will be non-convertible and fully redeemable.
With this, ASPCL has become the first company to enter the country’s bond market to collect funds through issuing bonds.
A total of 1,000,000 bonds will be issued through private placement. The coupon margin of the bond is 4 percent while its range of rate was set at 8.8 percent to 10.5 percent.
The banks and financial institutions, with their contract amounts of bonds, are Agranj Bank Tk 100 crore, Rupali Bank Tk 75 crore, Sonali Bank Tk 50 crore, Uttara Bank Tk 20 crore, Dutch-Bangla Bank Tk 50 crore, Bangladesh Infrastructure Finance Fund Ltd (BIFFL) Tk 100 crore, Shadharan Bima Corporation Tk 20 crore and ICB Asset Management Company Ltd Tk 20 crore.
However, the APSCL has targeted to raise a total of Tk 600 crore from the country’s bond market through issuing its bonds.
As per the plan, Tk 500 crore will be collected from banks and financial institutions while Tk 100 crore will be realised from public through public placement.
Welcoming the APSCL’s move to enter the country’s bond market to raise its financing, the Finance Minister said he always supports the Power Division to enhance its power generation capacity.
He said power and energy has been the key driver of the economy and it has been imperative for continuation of the current development momentum.
State Minister Nasrul Hamid described the move to collect funds from the bond market as a very positive step for the power sector, saying it will play a very important role in resolving fund crisis in the sector.
Principal Coordinator (SDG Affairs) of the Prime Minister’s Office Abul Kalam Azad, PDB Chairman Khaled Mahmood and APSCL Managing Director AMM Sazzadur Rahman also spoke on the occasion.