/
•
•
Context is everything.
Detailed stories on technology startups, business and economic current affairs.
Detailed stories on technology startups, business and economic current affairs.
By pushing for a sale of Vedanta’s global zinc assets to Hindustan Zinc, he may have spooked the government into scrapping a plan to divest its stake in the company.
Editor's note: It’s not the kind of faux pas that you would expect from Anil Agarwal, chairman of Vedanta Resources. Agarwal proposed the sale of the global zinc assets of Vedanta Resources to the locally listed Hindustan Zinc, in which the government of India holds a 29.5% stake, for $2.9 billion. On 19 January, despite reservations expressed by the three government nominees, Hindustan Zinc’s nine-member board ratified his proposal. This was only to be expected given that Vedanta Ltd owns 65% of Hindustan Zinc. Vedanta Ltd, in turn, is owned by Vedanta Resources. On the face of it, there appear to be two fundamental reasons why Agarwal wanted this deal to happen. For starters, his privately held Vedanta Resources is cash-strapped. In October last year, ratings agency Moody’s downgraded Vedanta Resources’s corporate family rating, citing “rising refinancing pressure” and its “persistently weak liquidity profile and our concerns over the elevated refinancing risk arising from its looming debt maturities”. Vedanta Resources has $7.7 billion of debt on its books. This, after repaying $2 billion in the last 11 months. The deal, to be …
After a strong listing, Vedanta Aluminium Metal is running into some headwinds. Aluminium prices are easing, but the sharper challenge is rising competition from Kumar Mangalam Birla and Gautam Adani.
Record earnings and a cleaner balance sheet offer relief, but muted production growth, delayed projects and a heavy reliance on favourable commodity cycles could weigh on the newly demerged entities of Anil Agarwal’s mining-to-metals group.
Despite a higher offer, creditors chose Gautam Adani’s Adani Enterprises—setting up a courtroom fight that raises questions over the bankruptcy resolution process’s priorities.
