Tata Teleservices, Citifinancials and Tata Power are among the large corporate borrowers from the debt private placement market in the first six months of this financial year. Tata Teleservices was the biggest mobiliser of debt with the company raising Rs970 crore, followed by Citifinancial mopping up Rs900 crore. Tata Power mobilised Rs600 crore and M&M Financial raised Rs525 crore through private placement of debt securities.

Interestingly private sector borrowing from private placement market increased in the first half of FY05. According to Prime Database, the mobilisation by the private sector surged 55 per cent from Rs4,613 crore to Rs7,144 crore in the same period in the previous year.

Significantly, most of the private sector debt was of AAA category and was from finance companies. The first six month of the current fiscal witnessed a mobilisation through debt (bonds) on private placement basis of Rs21,202 crore, mobilised by 69 institutions and corporates. The April-September mobilisation of Rs21,202 crore, witnessed a decline of 15 per cent over Rs25,025 crore mobilised in the corresponding period of the previous year.

The years 2001-02, 2002-03 and 2003-04 had witnessed mobilisation of Rs45,427 crore, Rs48,424 crore and Rs48,428 crore respectively. The reason for the fall in private placement of debt in this fiscal is due to lower borrowing by financial institutions and banks.

Mobilisation by FIs and banks was down by 28 per cent from Rs14,116 crore to Rs10,176 crore. Leading the pack in this sector were IDBI which raised Rs3,493 crore, followed by HDFC (Rs650 crore) and NABARD (Rs1,000 crore).

There was also a sharp decline in borrowing by public sector companies. PSU mobilisation was down by 49 per cent from Rs2,618 crore in the last year to only Rs1,354 crore was in the current period. Major mobiliser was Konkan Railway which raised Rs588 crore.

However, state level undertakings recorded a 21 per cent increase in borrowing through private placement to Rs2,453 crore compared to Rs2,032 crore in the corresponding period of the previous year.

Most of the funds raised by state level undertakings (SLUs) continued to be for the infrastructure sector, mainly power, roads and water resources. The leader in this category was (APPGC) Andhra Pradesh Power Generation Corporation Ltd (Rs590 crore) followed by (SSNNL) Sardar Sarovar Narmada Nigam Limited (Rs550 crore).

Government organisations and financial institutions put together, witnessed a fall in their domination, mobilising only 66 per cent of the total amount, down from 82 per cent in the previous year's corresponding period.