Zinc is manna from heaven for this Indian billionaire: Gadfly
Anil Agarwal wants to buy $2.4bn of Anglo American shares to help him create a resources conglomerate to rival the likes of BHP Billiton
Singapore — What a difference a year makes, especially when it comes with hundreds of million of dollars in unexpected cash prizes. At the start of 2016, Vedanta Resources’s 2019 dollar bonds were trading at less than 50c on the dollar; now, they’re well above par. Founder and chairman Anil Agarwal is celebrating by launching a debt-funded dalliance with Anglo American. Both the billionaire and his bond-holders should raise a toast to zinc. Hindustan Zinc, in which Agarwal picked up a controlling stake 15 years ago from the Indian government, announced a whopping $2.1bn dividend on Thursday, taking the total annual pay-out to more than $4bn. The Indian government continues to own 29.5% of the zinc producer. Strip away its share, and that of other minority investors in India, and the cash getting wired to Vedanta from the latest dividend still amounts to $720m. That’s enough to pay the London-based company’s $508m obligations this year to creditors and then some. But that’s still onl...
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