Anil Agarwal, group chairman, Vedanta Resources told CNBC-TV18’s Menaka Doshi that the company wants to create an Indian natural resources giant, which can compete with the likes of Rio Tinto.
Speaking on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum 2015, Agarwal also added that Vedanta is still working on the merger plan for Sesa Sterlite, Hindustan Zinc and Cairn.
Below is verbatim transcript of the interview:
Q: Recently you floated this concept of wanting to merge HZL and Cairn into Sesa Sterlite. Can you explain your rationale because the initial responses have been mixed?
A: This is all on the drawing board but India is such a big country. You need to have a natural resource company out of India.
Q: But you do have a natural resource company, right?
A: No, it is all fragmented. You have HZL, you have Bharat Aluminium Company Limited (BALCO), then you have Cairn and we thought if we put everything together it makes sense for the shareholder.
We are working on it as we require Hindustan Zinc shareholding from Indian government and also approval from Cairn.
Q: There is some fear that the rationale for the merger is the attractiveness of the cash lying on the books of HZL and Cairn versus the big debt that Sesa Sterlite is currently burdened with. Is this one of your key drivers?
A: We are the only company in India who has put the focus on natural resources. Otherwise we would have been importing this all the time. I am working very hard to make sure India produces metal.
We import USD 500 billion of imports and these are mainly metals, gold, oil. I am doing whatever I can and I am hopeful that they believe in manufacturing, they believe in funding in India, making in India, consuming in India.
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