Vedanta Group Chairman Anil Agarwal has reportedly told The Economic Times that its holding company Vedanta resources is well positioned to meet its future debt obligations and the concerns about the group being over leveraged are highly misplaced.
"We are very, very comfortable," said the 69-year-old billionaire in an interview with ET, drawing attention to the company's track record. "In the last 25 years, we have not defaulted even once. There has been disproportionate talk about our debt," Agarwal told The Economic Times.
Vedanta Resources Limited (Vedanta), the parent company of Mumbai-listed mining giant Vedanta Ltd, on Monday said it has paid all its maturing loans and bonds due in this month to reduce its gross debt by a further $1 billion.
Vedanta has now reduced debt by a total of $3 billion since it announced in February 2022 its intention to accelerate deleveraging.
It had announced plans to reduce debt by $4 billion within 3 years.
"Vedanta has thereby achieved 75 per cent of its committed reduction in just 14 months," the firm said in a statement.
The firm's gross debt now stands at $6.8 billion, down from $7.8 billion at the end of March 2023 and from $9.7 billion at the end of March 2022.
"During the balance of FY24, we believe that strong operational performance from our world class asset base coupled with robust commodity prices will lead to further deleveraging at Vedanta," the statement said.
Agarwal told The Economic Times that the group has a comfortable liquidity position and will be able to meet its debt obligations as per the deadlines.
"We will generate profits of $9 billion on a total revenue of around $30 billion in FY24," Agarwal was quoted by The Economic Times as saying.
(With PTI inputs)
