Vedanta Ltd’s promoters announced an open offer to acquire 37.2 crore equity shares, representing a 10% equity stake in the company, at Rs 160 per share on Saturday. The open offer price is at 12.1% discount to Friday’s closing price of Rs 182.05.
The London-based parent of Mumbai-listed Vedanta Ltd will buy as many as 371.75 million shares, comprising 10% of the outstanding equity of the Indian unit, according to an exchange filing Saturday.
Vedanta in a regulatory filing said, “Voluntary open offer for the acquisition of up to 371,750,500 equity shares, representing 10% of the fully diluted voting share capital of Vedanta (“Target Company”) from the Public Shareholders (as defined below) by Vedanta Resources (“Acquirer”) together with Twin Star Holdings (“PAC 1″), Vedanta Holdings Mauritius (“PAC 2″) and Vedanta Holdings Mauritius II (“PAC 3″ together with PAC 1 and PAC 2 to be referred as “PACs”), in their capacity as the persons acting in concert with the Acquirer.”
The open offer, which will be managed by JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s India unit, will be a voluntary open offer, with no minimum level of acceptance by Vedanta, according to the filing. If Vedanta Ltd. holders were to accept share tenders for the entire 10%, the consideration for the deal would be Rs 5,948 crore ($812 million).
As of 30 September 2020, Twinstar Holdings held 37.11% stake while Finsider International held a 10.8% stake in Vedanta.
In October 2020, Vedanta’s voluntary delisting bid failed after it could not get the minimum number of bids required from its minority shareholders to take it private. The promoters sought to buy out 169.73 crore shares or 47.67% stake held by the public to delist the firm.
Vedanta, a subsidiary of VRL, is one of the world’s leading diversified natural resource companies with business operations in India, South Africa, Namibia and Australia. The diversified natural resources company posted a 62% decline in consolidated net profit to Rs 824 crore in Q2 September 2020 as against Rs 2,158 crore in Q2 September 2019. Net sales during the quarter fell 4.3% YoY to Rs 20,804 crore.