Vedanta Ltd., billionaire Anil Agarwal’s Indian commodities major, will hand out a fifth dividend for the financial year ending Friday as parent Vedanta Resources Ltd. seeks to shore up funds to trim debt.
The company will pay an interim dividend of 20.50 rupees per share, or a total of about 76.21 billion rupees ($927 million), according to an exchange filing Tuesday. London-based Vedanta Resources owns about 70% of the Mumbai-listed unit that mines and exports commodities such as zinc, iron ore and aluminum.
Ajay Goel has resigned as the company’s acting chief financial officer effective from April 9 to pursue a career outside of the group, the company said in the statement, adding that a successor will be announced in due course.
Vedanta Resources is relying heavily on dividends from its units to help cut a net debt of $7.7 billion as its plan to raise $3 billion by selling a zinc manufacturing unit to Hindustan Zinc Ltd. has been vehemently opposed by the Indian government. New Delhi, which owns about 30% of Hindustan Zinc, has threatened to take legal action to stop the sale on concerns ranging from high valuations to it being a related-party transaction.
Total payouts by Vedanta Ltd. for the year, including earlier dividends, will be about 377 billion rupees, according to Bloomberg calculations. Vedanta’s unit Hindustan Zinc announced a fourth dividend of about 110 billion rupees last week.
Shares of Vedanta Ltd. closed 0.6% higher in Mumbai before the dividend was announced.
(By Swansy Afonso)
Comments