Indian auto giant Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M) has confirmed that it has raised Rs 500 crore through a 50-year, plain vanilla rupee-denominated bonds issue.

The bonds carry an interest rate of 9.55 per cent payable annually and does not have call or put option.

V S Parthsarathy, Chief Information Officer at Mahindra Group, said proceeds from the bonds' sale would be used for capital expansion, project funding, refinancing of capital expansion loans and to meet requirements of long-term working capital.

The successful issue made the company India's first company to sell such a long term rupee-denominated debt instrument.

On the justification for such a long tenure issue, Parthsarathy said, said, "We wanted to do a benchmark deal with a maturity horizon that was unexplored, leveraging our credit profile and rare issuer status."

Global rating agency Crisil also acknowledged that it was the longest-tenure rupee-denominated unconvertible debenture sale by an Indian company.

Crisil assigned an AA+/stable rating to the issue, and noted that the issue highlighted the increasing depth & maturity of India's debt market.

In the after-hours trading, M&M shares gained Rs 3.5, or 0.36 per cent, to Rs 985.90 apiece on the Bombay Stock Exchange on Tuesday.