Further, an arranging group comprising ANZIB, Lehman Brothers, Credit Suisse First Boston, and ABN Amro Bank will help PFC tap the US markets with a 10-year $150 million bond offering. The ten-year bond, sources in the syndication markets say, is expected to be priced at 258 bps over the US treasuries.

And shortly, BA Asia will arrange a $245 million two-year refinancing deal for the Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) at 24.5 bps over Libor. IOC is refinancing a seven-year foreign currency loan for the same amount it had contracted five years ago.

The $100 million PFC loan syndication--the first joint deal after the announcement of StanChart's acquisition of ANZ interests in India and the middle-East--is a refinancing deal: of an earlier seven-year $100 million PFC loan with a `put' option after five years priced at 115 bps. This loan had been contracted just after the Pokhran nuclear blasts in May 1998. PFC's post-May 1998 loan was lead-managed by ANZIB.

"The loan has been underwritten equally by ANZIB and StanChart, and is the first joint mandate since the announcement of a new co-operation agreement between the two organisations", said the two banks in a joint statement.PFC's $100 million loan is the first major debt offering by a local entity after a $100 million net-based syndication of a five-year ICICI Ltd loan priced at 180 bps over Libor lead managed by BankAm. The only difference being that the ICICI Ltd loan was a `virgin' issue: not a refinancing one.

"The syndicated loan market is picking up...the appetitite for offerings by top-rung local compnaies is better than say, even Korean entities", a source on the syndication desk of a foreign bank said.

Another major refinancing deal concluded this year is a one-year $180 million offering by the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) arranged by BA Asia with Bank of Baroda, and Bank of India as co-arrangers priced at 280 bps over Libor.

It is after a two-year break that the foreign currency syndicated loan market is perking up. The south-Asian financial meltdown and the Pokhran nuclear blasts in May'98 had dealt a body blow to foreign currency borrowings. For two consecutive years prior to that, cumulative syndicated loans per annum totalled up to a healthy $4 to 5 billion with even offerings by start-up telecom ventures like Birla-AT&T's $283 million loan getting lapped up.

The recent easing of bureaucratic red-tape with the Reserve Bank now authorised to directly clear external commercial borrowings of up to $100 million with automatic approval for loans up to $50 million is seen giving a boost to local corporate interest in contracting syndicated loans.