India Inc seems to have regained its appetite for mergers and acquisitions. In the second-largest acquisition in India's iron ore industry, Sesa Goa, a subsidiary of London-listed Vedanta Resources, on Thursday acquired Goa-based Dempo group's mining and maritime businesses for Rs 1,750 crore in an all-cash deal.
Vedanta Resources has delayed its offer to buy a further 20% stake in iron-ore mining company Sesa Goa.
"The scope of SFIO investigation include looking into the state of affairs of the company and its subsidiary Sesa Industries Ltd, in respect of mismanagement, malpractices, financial and other irregularities."
The Securities and Exchange Board of India on Tuesday approved the open offer of Vedanta Resources for Sesa Goa.
The Supreme Court on Friday refused to restrain Vedanta Resources' subsidiary Sesa Goa from launching an open offer to buy 20 per cent stake in Cairn India.
NRI business tycoon Anil Agarwal-led Vedanta Resources will pay $1.37 billion (about Rs 5,700 crore) for acquiring 71 per cent stake in India's biggest iron ore exporter Sesa Goa.
Sesa Goa has received a showcause notice from the Jharkhand government asking it why its prospective licence for iron ore mines in the state should not be cancelled.
Iron ore exporter Sesa Goa said on Friday it would raise Rs 6,000 crore by issuing various securities in domestic and overseas markets for funding its business plans.
The post-Covid pandemic boom in corporate revenues appeared to have faded away in 2023-24. Yet, companies have reported a sharp recovery in their profits in FY24, driven by high margins. Their combined net sales, including gross interest income for lenders, rose by a modest 4.8 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y) in FY24.
Indian lenders are unlikely to clear the vertical split of BSE-listed Vedanta Ltd in a hurry, considering that the demerger would reduce the fungibility of cash flows across businesses and increase their volatility, according to analysts. The demerger plan, which would result in six separate listed entities, would require approval from shareholders, lenders and other statutory bodies. "We believe that a separate listing of different businesses would reduce the fungibility of cash flows across businesses and increase the volatility of cash flows.
Debt management is going to be a worry for the Vedanta group until FY25 at least. However, the restructuring of business divisions in Vedanta India could lead to an unlocking of values. The group structure is fairly complex. Anil Agarwal-led Vedanta Resources (VRL), which is London-listed, has a lot of debt on the balance sheet. It will have to repay $1 billion in secured bonds by January 2024 and at least another $300 million in calendar 2024.
Earlier this month, the high court asked Sesa Goa and JSW Steel to re-bid.
While Vedanta Aluminium, Balco and Cairn India confirmed the job cuts, sources said Sesa Goa too had slashed jobs.
Vedanta group chairman, Anil Agarwal, 69, is well known for his business journey from a scrap dealer from Bihar to a London-based globe-girdling metal and oil and gas conglomerate with revenues of $19 billion. Now his abilities to keep his group from over-leveraging itself will be put to the test. Over the years, Agarwal, now based in London, set up the conglomerate via acquiring iron ore producer Sesa Goa, Cairn's oil producing assets in India, and Electrosteel Steel.
NRI billionaire Anil Agrawal-led Vedanta Group on Tuesday said its open offer for 20 per cent stake in Cairn India will begin on October 11, as part of its $9.6 billion takeover deal of the country's fourth largest oil explorer.
Government is yet to approve Cairn's deal to sell stake in Cairn India to Vedanta.
Nearly four decades ago, when Rakesh Jhunjhunwala was a young chartered accountant in training, he was paid a conveyance of Rs 60. Deductions would take away Rs 15 from this princely sum and he was left with Rs 45 by the time the allowance made its way to his hands. He would save as much as he could from this amount, so that he would have a small amount to spend when he met his friends on the weekend at Chicken Centre. This was an eatery popular with the young at the time, perhaps because food and drink were affordable even for those new to the workforce.
The corporate rivalry in India is pass. I believe there is enough water in the sea for every fish.
SFIO, the investigation arm of the Corporate Affairs Ministry, has been ordered to probe alleged fraud in 83 companies in the last four years, Parliament was informed on Thursday.
The Election Commission has come across instances of suspected violations of the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act by Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party in their acceptance of donations from subsidiaries of multi-national firm Vedanta group.
The Securities and Exchange Board of India issued its guidelines, making it mandatory for the country's top 500 companies to offer the e-voting facility to its shareholders, after a large number of votes sent through the postal ballot route were found invalid.
An investment worth Rs 1,000 in Reliance Industries' initial public offer about 35 years earlier is now worth Rs 778,000, said its chief, Mukesh Ambani, on Thursday.
The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) is unlikely to clear Vedanta Resources and Sesa Goa's open offer to the shareholders of Cairn India till the government approves the Cairn-Vedanta deal, according to officials familiar with the matter.
Whereas, the group is offering Cairn India's parent Cairn Energy Rs 405 a share, which includes a fee for not competing with it in India, Sri Lanka and Bhutan for the next three years.
It is not clear what will happen if the open offer is completed before the government approves the deal.
The government on Wednesday said it will not relook at the investigations handled by arrested Company Law Board member R Vasudevan, when he was heading the inspection department of the ministry of corporate affairs.
The provision in the new mining bill approved by a group of ministers last week for 26 per cent profit sharing by mining companies with affected residents of the area they operate in hasn't been welcomed by many in the sector.
Five Indian metals and mining companies are in the race for acquiring mining rights for the largest iron ore deposit in war-torn Afghanistan. The government has shortlisted Vedanta group's Sesa Goa, Essar Minerals, Ispat Industries, JSW Steel and Rashtriya Ispat Nigam for a bid for the 1.8 billion tonne Hajigak iron ore deposit.
A little over a year before, when the Hajigak iron ore deposit was put up for grabs, at least five companies - Essar Minerals, JSW Steel, Rashtriya Ispat Nigam, Sesa Goa and Ispat Industries - had evinced interest.
LN Mittal, who is a frontrunner for acquiring a 51 per cent stake in Sesa Goa from Mitsui and has announced plans for projects in Jharkhand and Orissa worth Rs 40,000 crore each, is planning a $2 billion (Rs 8,600 crore) foundation.
A reception often reserved for rockstars came the way of mining mogul Anil Agarwal when he started revealing nuggets of his ascent from a scrap-metal dealer to one of India's most prominent self-made industrialists on social media. And now he has been flooded with booking writing proposals and has even been offered money for a biopic. In February this year, Agarwal, 68, started tweeting his journey from Bihar to Mumbai first and then to London to head a globally diversified natural resources company with interests in zinc-lead-silver, iron ore, steel, copper, aluminium, power, oil and gas.
Leading IT companies i-flex Software and Satyam Computers have made their way to Forbes Global's list of 100 'best under a billion' companies in Asia Pacific.
The markets opened flat on the back of weak Asian cues
The markets have opened on a positive note but soon weakness began to set in
At 9:58 am, the Nifty was trading at 3573 up 4 points and the Sensex was trading at 12393 up 26 points.
'You cannot achieve everything in one day and in the long path, there will be ups and downs in your life.'
The Delhi high court on Friday reserve its order on a Public Interest Litigation alleging that the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party received funding from subsidiaries of United Kingdom-based Vedanta Resources in violation of various Indian laws.
Vedanta Resources has huge interests in India. The promoter and majority shareholder of Vedanta Resources, Anil Agarwal, also founded Sterlite Industries.
Among the Sensex 30 stocks, new entrant Sesa Goa soared 22 per cent to Rs 187, while TCS rose 11 per cent to Rs 2,023.
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