Vedanta’s profits for the first half of its current financial year have disappointed the London-listed, Indian uber-miner. In fact, since January 2010, the company has “under-performed” the British mining index by 25%. Just three years ago it was leading that index.
Not that this downturn has noticeably perturbed Mr Anil Agarwal. The simultaneously self-effacing & self -aggrandising chair and majority-owner of Vedanta is now mooting a stock exchange listing of his company’s copper interests in Zambia. He’s also optimistic about gaining Indian government permission to take over the Rajasthan operations of Edinburgh-based oil outfit, Cairn Energy, claiming last Friday that he’d secured the £3.8 billion necessary from eight complicit banks: Barclays Capital, RBS, Citi, Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley and Standard Chartered.
But, as the saying goes – “it ain’t over ’til the fat cats purr”.
See http://www.minesandcommunities.org/article.php?a=10540.