Contrary to concerns being raised about a lukewarm investor response, Larsen & Toubro's Infrastructure Finance arm's INR 200 crore retail bonds issue has been oversubscribed.

Mr Suneet Maheshwari CEO of L&T Infra said that “I do see some oversubscription (but) I can't say how much. I do see some small oversubscription.”

L&T had come out with its INR 200 crore retail tax saving bonds issue last month which had an option to retain oversubscription of an additional INR 500 crore.

Mr Maheshwari said L&T's decision to extend the closing date for its issue by nearly a fortnight to November 15 has paid-off. He added that "We had extended the date because a lot of investors had locked their money in Coal India and we have seen the benefit of it (extension of closing date).”

L&T's peer in the infrastructure finance companies space, IDFC, had fallen short of its target of raising INR 600 crore through a similar issue last month even after extending its date and managed only INR436 crore.

However, the country's largest lender State Bank of India which had also launched a retail bond issue during the same time sans the tax saving advantage, had witnessed a whopping 17 times oversubscription.

(Sourced from Economic Times)