The company has repaid three facilities, which were taken from Standard Chartered Bank, London and Hong Kong, VRL said in a stock exchange update.
London-headquartered Vedanta Resources (VRL), the parent company of Indian mining major Vedanta, has repaid loans worth $800 million to Standard Chartered Bank, following which the encumbrance on all shares was released.
The debt was raised by group companies Twin Star Holdings, Vedanta Netherlands Investments and Vedanta Resources, while VRL and its subsidiaries were guarantors for the loans. The company has repaid three facilities, which were taken from Standard Chartered Bank, London and Hong Kong, VRL said in a stock exchange update.
These were taken across three facilities ($400 million, $250 million and $150 million) and were repaid as of May 3, it said, adding there are no outstanding amounts under these facilities.
The shares of its subsidiaries — Twin Star Holdings, Vedanta Holdings Mauritius II, Finsider International, Vedanta Holdings Mauritius, Vedanta Netherlands and Welter Trading — were earlier pledged for these facilities.
A total of 2.532 billion shares were pledged earlier.
Earlier, VRL had reduced its gross debt by another $1 billion by paying all its maturing loans and bonds that were due during the month.
Following the initiative, the Anil Agarwal-controlled company’s gross debt has fallen to $6.8 billion as of April 24 from $7.8 billion as of March-end. The debt is lower by $2.9 billion from $9.7 billion recorded as of March-end 2022, VRL said in a statement.
The company has reduced debt by $3 billion since February 2022, when it announced plans to reduce debt by $4 billion in three years.
VRL, which has operations in India, Zambia, Namibia and South Africa, has been trying to reduce debt by using cash flows from operating companies — Hindustan Zinc (HZL) and Indian unit Vedanta — and by streamlining operations of group companies. It had also started repaying debt.
The Indian government holds a 29.54% stake in HZL, which was privatised more than two decades ago, and Vedanta holds a 64.92% stake.
VRL has annual debt maturities of about $3 billion each in FY24 and FY25, with high near-term maturities of $1.7 billion in the first quarter of FY24. The company was in discussion with lenders for refinancing upcoming maturities of the first quarter of FY24 and the same is expected to be completed by the end of March 2023 or early April 2023, Crisil Ratings had said in March.
