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KCM en bourse probable avant fin juin !!
By Amy Kazmin in New Delhi and William MacNamara in London
Published: May 20 2011 22:50 | Last updated: May 20 2011 22:50
Vedanta, the India-focused mining company, aims to tap the bond market for $1.5bn to help finance its stalled takeover of Cairn Energy’s India assets.
The move came in spite of both companies once again pushing back the deal’s deadline after nine months of irresolution.
EDITOR’S CHOICE
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Vedanta buys stake in Cairn India - Apr-19
The London-listed miner said on Friday it would raise the funds in “one or more tranches” offered to institutional investors. It would use the proceeds for different purposes if the Cairn deal failed, the company said in a statement.
Vedanta’s return to the bond markets is its latest attempt to finance an acquisition – worth up to $9.6bn – from various parts of its web of companies.
Sesa Goa, an India-listed iron ore miner of which Vedanta owns 56 per cent, has spent $2.6bn of its cash reserves building up an 18.5 per cent stake in Cairn India, much to the chagrin of minority shareholders.
Meanwhile Vedanta is expected to spin off its Zambian copper mining business some time before the end of June. The flotation of Konkola Copper Mines, which was proposed but then shelved last year, would raise additional funds for the group.
Moody’s reiterated on Friday that Vedanta’s “corporate family” credit rating is under watch for a possible downgrade from Ba1.
The credit ratings agency said that the acquisition of Cairn India would involve risks, as the oil and gas business are different from Vedanta’s core competency of hard metals. It also said that the large size of the majority debt funded transaction would bring new risks to the mining company.
Vedanta – at the parent level and through listed subsidiaries Sterlite Industries and Sesa Goa – has launched bond offerings several times since 2009. Its preferred funding method has been convertible bonds used for capital expenditure.
The Cairn India deal, announced last August, has been one piece of Vedanta’s aggressive expansion drive. It has been stalled for months awaiting clearance from New Delhi. The Indian government has balked at granting control of Cairn India’s strategically important Rajasthan oilfields to the company owned by Anil Agarwal, the self-made billionaire who controls 60 per cent of Vedanta shares.
The deal has also become entangled in a royalty dispute, with the state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp, a partner in the Rajasthan fields, which has objected to its royalty burden.
The Cairn deal “sees the complex structure of Vedanta persist,” said Moody’s analysts in an April note, referring to Vedanta’s proposal to split its Cairn stake between Sesa Goa and other entities.
“Substantial minority shareholders in both listed and unlisted subsidiaries continue to populate the Vedanta Group structure, from the UK Plc to the Indian operating companies, and in order to protect ownership levels, debt is invariably the first choice for new funds,” Moody’s wrote.
The agency said Vedanta’s ratings would remain at their current level if the deal falls through.
Cairn Energy said this week it would indefinitely extend the deadline for deal completion while it awaits the government’s decision.
The political difficulties have not deterred Mr Agarwal from building a stake in the oil producer. In April Sesa Goa spent $1.45bn to buy a 10.4 per cent of Cairn India in a block deal with Malaysia’s Petronas. It then spent another $1.2 buying 8.1 per cent of the company in an open offer.
In a statement, Vedanta said it would use the bond issue’s proceeds to “finance a portion of the purchase price for [Cairn] and to pay related fees and expenses”.
Mr Agarwal’s company, built by acquiring undervalued state-owned mining assets from the Indian government, has several ongoing legal disputes with the government.