Axis Bank  announced that it priced a USD 250 million bond issue via a tap of its existing 3.250% senior unsecured notes due 2020. The notes, issued in Reg-S format will be fungible with the existing 2020 maturity paper. The Notes are issued by Axis Bank's DIFC branch, Dubai and are rated Baa2 by Moody's, BBB- by S&P and BBB- by Fitch.

The deal was launched at initial price guidance of US Treasuries + 150 bps and attracted robust demand from investors with the books covered within an hour of announcement of transaction to the market. The final orderbook was in excess of USD 1.25 billion with strong participation from Asia, Middle East and Europe. On the back of strong investor response, the guidance was tightened by 15 bps to T +135 bps.

Bank of America Merill Lynch, Citibank, HSBC and Standard Chartered acted as joint book-runners and lead managers.

Shares of the bank gained Rs 2.35, or 0.38%, to trade at Rs 615. The total volume of shares traded was 136,137 at the BSE (9.43 a.m., Thursday).