Will complete merger with Cairn this financial yr: Anil Agarwal

Cairn India shareholders today approved the company's merger with Vedanta with 92.86 percent shareholders voting in favour of the deal. Speaking to CNBC-TV18, Vedanta's Chairman Anil Agarwal shared the deal details and his expectations on the timeline for completion of the deal. Below is the transcript of Anil Agarwal's interview to CNBC-TV18's Kritika Saxena and Nisha Poddar.Kritika: Cairn India shareholders have approved the merger between Vedanta and Cairn. What was the response like, 92.86 percent shareholders have said yes to the merger?A: Yes. If you see the small shareholders all have voted in favour because they believe in the great value in this. They have seen the merger proposal and have seen the two sides, one side is the shareholder benefit, other is creating a natural resource company out of India. It is unparalled in the history where you have one company which produces 30 percent oil of the country, produces copper, zinc, iron ore, aluminium, one company which will be having all this. The biggest benefit would be to the government.Nisha: Out of the total shareholders, minority shareholders about 75 crore of them, 12.2 crore have voted against this merger and rest have all given you a thumping support. I just wanted to check a lot has been spoken about which way Cairn Energy PLC will go, which way LIC will go. As per our sources LIC had abstained from voting in Vedanta voting. So, in this case who has voted in favour and who hasn’t, if you could give us some details on that - LIC as well as Cairn Energy PLC?A: I don't have the details but we are very happy that this kind of majority vote has come in favour.Nisha: Could you convince Cairn Energy PLC is what I wanted to understand?A: Of course we have convinced the smallest shareholder to the largest shareholder. Tom Albanese who led the team had gone relentlessly in last few weeks to each shareholder and told them the India story and they all were convinced. This deal is not for handshake, it is about making a presentation, telling them how the product is coming out and convincing them that if you are part of this it will be of benefit to you.Kritika: But just to clarify for the information of our viewers over and above the smaller minority shareholders, the large shareholders whose nod was very crucial are on both that LIC and Cairn Energy?A: Trust me every smaller shareholder is important. It is a question of how you feel about this what we are doing and we find most of the people could convince that what we are doing probably they don’t have to tell me on my face, but I could see that they felt this is a right thing to do.Nisha: What about the cash flows now with Cairn India over Rs 20,000 crore of cash would be coming in the merged entity Cairn-Vedanta. How are you going to use your cash, for you what is important right now, do you see metal and mining and other resource businesses right now at a growth phase so that you want to invest or you want to bring down the debt levels, is that going to be used for growth purposes or for deleveraging? A: If you see our leveraging if you look at as a natural resource company, we are 30 percent lower leveraged than the other company, if you see the world standard. We are very comfortable with the leverage, but with this money both we are going to do, we will look at to reduce our debt. Also, we are going to put money into the growth.Nisha: Is there any bifurcation how much money would be, because obviously your debt equity levels are getting much better with this cash coming in, so firs what is the timeline you earlier said that by December you would be looking at completing this merger, so how much time do you think it will take to be feasible at this point, that in how much time it could be completed and your debt equity will improve, so how much debt reduction could you be looking at?A: It doesn’t matter, but we will be completing in this financial year this merger.