Anil Agarwal-led Vedanta plans to raise ₹8,500 crore for investing in new projects and has also announced an interim dividend of ₹11 per equity share for FY’25 that will lead to an outflow of ₹4,089 crore.
The company’s board of directors in a meeting held on Thursday approved the proposals and set May 25 as the record date for dividend payment.
Vedanta plans to set up continuous cast copper rod plant in Saudi Arabia through its subsidiary Vedanta Copper International (VCI).
The company is in the process of establishing a modern copper rod manufacturing facility with capacity of 1.25 lakh tonnes per annum in Saudi Arabia to explore more growth opportunities in new geographies. Post the investment, VCI will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of the company. VCI will have share capital of Saudi riyal of 1 lakh (about ₹22 lakh).
Incidentally, the Supreme Court early this year dismissed Vedanta group company Sterlite Copper’s plea to reopen its Sterlite Copper smelter plant in Tamil Nadu’s Thoothukudi. The plant has remained shut since 2018. The Group had put the plant on the block but could not find a suitor. Following this, it attempted to shift the plant to other States but found little success.
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Late last year, the Zambian government signed an agreement to restore the owner ship of Konkola Copper Mines to the Group’s holding company Vedanta Resources. The copper assets were seized by the Zambian government in 2019. The agreement led to withdrawal of all legal challenges in the Court.
Billionaire Anil Agarwal’s Vedanta had mounted several legal cases including suing Zambia at the arbitration court in London to regain control of KCM after former president Edgar Lungu’s government orchestrated the seizure of the copper assets by forcing the operations into liquidation in May 2019. The Zambian administration had accused the company of failing to invest to boost copper output.
Shares of the company were down one per cent at ₹433 on Thursday.