Anil Agarwal has decided to delist Vedanta Ltd from Indian stock exchanges with promoter group Vedanta Resources making an offer to buy out the 48.94 per cent portion of non-promoter shares. Vedanta Resources has tentatively offered ₹87.5 for each share, which represents a premium of 9.9 per cent over the closing market price of ₹79.6 as on May 11, 2020 on the BSE and the NSE.

The promoters will spend about ₹16,000 crore to buy back shares from the public.

“We wish to inform you that the company (Vedanta Ltd) has received a letter dated May 12, 2020 from one of the members of the promoter and promoter group of the company namely, Vedanta Resources Ltd. In the letter, VRL has expressed its intention to, either individually or along with one or more subsidiaries, acquire all fully paid-up equity shares of the Company that are held by the public shareholders... and consequently voluntarily delist the equity shares from the BSE and the NSE,” Vedanta said in a communication to the stock exchanges.

A meeting of the board of directors of the company is being convened on May 18 in order to consider the offer.

Explaining the rationale, the promoter group said that the Vedanta group has been pursuing a process of corporate simplification for several years, including the merger of Sterlite with Sesa Goa to form Sesa-Sterlite (subsequently renamed Vedanta) in 2012, the merger of Cairn India with Vedanta in 2016, and the delisting of Vedanta Resources (subsequently renamed Vedanta Resources) in 2018.

“The group believes that a delisting of Vedanta is the next logical step in this simplification process and will provide it with enhanced operational and financial flexibility in a capital intensive business,” it said in a statement.

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