HDFC Bank carrying out modifications to $1.2 bn Bahrain bonds

S&P lowered its long and short term foreign and local currency sovereign credit ratings on the Kingdom of Bahrain to BB/B (stable) from BBB-/A3 (negative).

HDFC Bank Ltd has informed BSE that the bank has outstanding bonds totaling to approximately USD 1.20 bn issued from Bahrain branch. These bonds have a dual rating from Standard & Poor’s (S&P) of BBB- and Moody’s of Baa3. Rating of HDFC Bank by S&P and Moody’s is at BBB- and Baa3 respectively.

On February 17, 2016, S&P lowered its long and short term foreign and local currency sovereign credit ratings on the Kingdom of Bahrain to BB/B (stable) from BBB-/A3 (negative).

The rating criteria published by S&P restricts the rating of any bond issued in a jurisdiction to the host country rating. Consequent to the recent rating action on Bahrain, the bonds issued by HDFC Bank may also be subject to rating action by S&P. The bank is in the process of carrying out modifications to the structure of all the issuances done from Bahrain in order to ensure that the Bonds issued by HDFC Bank are insulated from any rating actions on the host country.

Stock commentary:
HDFC Bank Ltd is currently trading at Rs. 985, down by Rs. 4.6 or 0.46% from its previous closing of Rs. 989.6 on the BSE.

The scrip opened at Rs. 989 and has touched a high and low of Rs. 989 and Rs. 982 respectively. So far 33451(NSE+BSE) shares were traded on the counter. The current market cap of the company is Rs. 249982.17 crore.

The BSE group 'A' stock of face value Rs. 2 has touched a 52 week high of Rs. 1127.9 on 21-Jul-2015 and a 52 week low of Rs. 944.7 on 07-May-2015. Last one week high and low of the scrip stood at Rs. 996 and Rs. 959.1 respectively.

The promoters holding in the company stood at 21.51 % while Institutions and Non-Institutions held 43.59 % and 16.17 % respectively.

The stock is currently trading above its 200 DMA.