Vedanta Assets pays $400 million debt, borrowings all the way down to $6.4 billion

Vedanta Assets Restricted (Vedanta), the dad or mum firm of Mumbai-listed mining big Vedanta Ltd, on Wednesday mentioned it has additional repaid USD 400 million of loans, chopping gross debt to USD 6.4 billion. In an announcement, the agency helmed by billionaire Anil Agarwal mentioned it “has paid all its maturing loans and bonds due in Could and June 2023..

“As such, gross debt has additional diminished to USD 6.4 billion, a USD 3.3 billion discount since Vedanta introduced its deleveraging ambition in March 2022,” it mentioned.

CreditSights, a Fitch Group agency, had final week acknowledged that it noticed decrease refinancing danger for Vedanta Assets Ltd’s (VRL) near-term debt maturities on a brand new USD 850 million mortgage refinancing.

“Wanting forward, whereas we estimate extra funds must be raised to completely fund VRL’s estimated USD 2.1 billion of FY24 (April 2023 to March 2024 fiscal 12 months) debt refinancing wants (USD 850 million lined, implying a niche of USD 1.25 billion), we predict VRL nonetheless has a number of funding avenues to faucet onto. These embody share pledges and dividend upstreaming,” it had mentioned.

The agency had final on April 24 acknowledged that it had reduce gross debt to USD 6.8 billion after repayments.

“Vedanta is focusing on additional debt discount through the steadiness of FY24, and in the end intends to decrease gross debt in direction of zero,” the corporate assertion mentioned Wednesday. “This will likely be aided by our expectations of sturdy demand, significantly in India, coupled with sturdy operational efficiency from our world-class asset base..

Vedanta’s gross debt as of in the present day stands at USD 6.4 billion, down from USD 6.8 billion on the finish of April 2023, USD 7.8 billion on the finish of March 2023, and USD 9.7 billion on the finish of March 2022.

It nevertheless didn’t point out a timeline for reaching zero gross debt.

“We stay conscious of refinancing danger on VRL’s USD 4.1 billion money owed due in FY24, for which VRL will doubtless must rely closely on exterior fundraising for a USD 2.1 billion refinancing and an extra USD 950 million to plug a funding hole.

“At this level, we’d nonetheless lean in direction of VRL being profitable at tying up its USD 2.1 billion of fundraising, given VRL’s observe document of ‘going to the brink and succeeding’, latest debt reductions, latest contemporary fundraising efforts and that we predict varied different funding channels stay open for VRL, regardless of the tighter financial institution funding situations,” CreditSight had mentioned.

These avenues embody pledging of promoter stake in the primary working firm Vedanta Ltd and additional dividend upstreaming from working firms.

“We additionally suppose VRL’s well timed debt repayments so far and up to date refinancing progress might help lending sentiment,” it had mentioned. “We warning of execution danger: VRL’s refinancing of the USD 1-1.25 billion mortgage will not be finalised but and an absence of progress, a failure of refinancing talks, or its incapability to tie up the mortgage for late-FY24 pose draw back dangers to our suggestion.”

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