News @ Jains - Jain Irrigation has completed the offering and placement of Foreign Currency Convertible Bonds (FCCB’s) of $ 60 million.

The issue conversion price has been fixed at Rs. 345.59 per share, i.e. 40% premium to the closing price in BSE yesterday. The bonds have a maturity of 5 years and carry a zero coupon rate. Bonds will give yield to maturity of 6.75% per annum.

The Company plans to use the proceeds of the issue to finance its capital and product development expenditure, financing and refinancing the domestic and international acquisitions and strategic alliances and refinancing of foreign currency denominated loans subject to applicable guidelines

The Company has finalized its capital expenditure plans for FY 2006-07 for its 4 major business divisions, viz. the Micro Irrigation, Plastic Piping, Plastic Sheets and Food Processing. Accordingly, the capacity in plastics business will go up by 69,000 TPA to 204,000 TPA and the capacity in food business will go up by 41,550 TPA to 71,200 TPA after the proposed capex. The increased capacities are likely to come on stream during 2006-07. Post implementation, JISL will have built global capacities in each of its business lines allowing itself to be a leader in India and amongst the top 3-5 players in the world in Micro Irrigation, Onion Dehydration, Mango Processing and PVC Foam Sheet business.

The Company also announced recently the acquisition of a strategic stake in Eurodrip SA, a Greece based Micro Irrigation Company with manufacturing presence in 5 countries and exports to over 40 countries in the world. On the domestic front, the company has recently acquired 2 mango processing units of Parle Bisleri in Chittoor District of Andhra Pradesh and is readying the plants for the 2006 mango processing season.

Morgan Stanley were the sole Book Runner and Lead Manager for the issue and domestic advisors were YES Bank and SSKI Corporate Finance Private Limited.