India's SP Group arm taps dollar debt to meet another unit's dues

By Dharamraj Dhutia and Khushi Malhotra MUMBAI, Sept 29 (Reuters) — An unit of India's Shapoorji Pallonji Group, Mercury Finance, is raising $125 million through the reissue of a U.S. dollar bond maturing in nearly three years, three sources aware of the matter said on Tuesday. Mercury Finance will raise the funds by reopening its zero-coupon dollar bonds due July 2029, with the company retaining the right to redeem them after one year, the sources said. The real estate conglomerate plans to use the proceeds to invest in rupee-denominated bonds to be issued later by a local group entity, they said. The dollar sale would be followed by another reissuance. The sources declined to be identified as they were not authorised to speak to the media. Shapoorji Pallonji Group did not respond to a Reuters request for comment. Eqyizen Investment, another SP group unit, will reissue a zero-coupon, rupee-denominated bonds maturing in July 2029. The firm had raised 213.50 billion rupees via the original issue at 18.95% yield in July. The funds arising from this dollar-rupee fundraising deal will be used for meeting a payment obligation of Porteast Investment, another subsidiary, that is due to pay around 35 billion rupees for debt raised in May 2025, and the group has sought an extension to the deadline to October 31. "The current arrangement is a miniature version of what we saw in July, as the magnitude is much smaller," one of the sources mentioned above said. In July, Mercury Finance raised $650 million, which was invested in rupee debt sold by Eqyizen Investment, whose bonds are secured by SP Group's stake in Tata Sons, held through Cyrus Investments. The outlook for SP Group's debt has improved after Tata Trusts, Tata Sons' controlling shareholder, said earlier this month that SP Group had proposed selling 250 billion rupees worth of its stake. (Reporting by Dharamraj Dhutia and Khushi Malhotra; Editing by Nivedita Bhattacharjee) ((Dharamraj.Dhutia@thomsonreuters.com, Khushi.malhotra@thomsonreuters.com)