Vedanta Resources Bonds Rise After Open Offer for Its India Unit

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The logo of Vedanta Resources
The logo of Vedanta Resources Plc sits on a newly molded aluminum ingot at the Impol Seval AD Sevojno plant in Sevojno, Serbia, on Friday, Aug. 17, 2018. Following the 20 percent slump in aluminum since April, some producers can’t cover their costs as the price of alumina -- their key raw material -- moves higher. Photographer: Oliver Bunic/Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) -- Vedanta Resources Ltd.’s bond rose after the miner launched an offer for its India unit, its latest attempt aimed at simplifying a corporate structure that hinders the parent from easily accessing cash at subsidiaries.

The London-based company’s 2022 dollar note gained 1.9 cents on the dollar to about 92.4 cents, the highest since March, Bloomberg-compiled prices show. Vedanta Resources and its three units plan to buy as many as 371.75 million shares of Mumbai-based Vedanta Ltd. at 160 rupees each in a 59.48 billion rupee ($812 million) deal, according to an exchange filing Saturday.

If the entire offer is taken up by shareholders, Vedanta Group could increase its stake in the Indian unit by 10 percentage points to 65.11%. Shares in Vedanta Ltd. fell about 2% to 178.5 rupees.

Read about Vedanta Resources’s $400 million note sale to Oaktree

The latest offer shows the group’s continued keenness in streamlining its corporate layout. Increasing its holding in Vedanta Ltd. would allow Anil Agarwal’s debt heavy London-based holding company to access a larger piece of the dividends that the money-spinning business pays.

Vedanta Resources’s offer comes a month after it allayed investor concerns over its funding by raising $1 billion from a note sale, albeit at one of the highest yields for a dollar bond in Asia last year. Investors will closely watch the response to the open offer after shareholders thwarted the group’s attempt at delisting Vedanta Ltd. last year.

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