Team Blitz India
NEW DELHI: Mining mogul Anil Agarwal has said his Vedanta group has ample cash flow to service all its debt repayment obligations and that it aims to become a “net zero debt company” in 2-3 years.
Agarwal said questions over Vedanta’s debt servicing ability are “absolutely irrelevant” as the group will make USD 9 billion of profits next year on revenue of USD 30 billion, which would be sufficient to meet all obligations.
The comments by the former scrap metal trader turned industrialist appeared in the national media on April 28 at a time when scrutiny of highly leveraged Indian conglomerates grows following a US short seller attack on the Adani group.
“We have the lowest debt in the world for a group of our size,” Agarwal, founder, and chairman of Vedanta Resources, said, adding that the debt is a result of investing billions of dollars across businesses.
“Total debt in the company is USD 13 billion. And we have a profit this year of USD 7 billion. Next year our revenue would be USD 30 billion and we will have USD 9 billion profit” across the group. The cash flows are more than sufficient to meet debt servicing obligations. We are very comfortable,” he said.
“We have never defaulted to make any payment. We always have a plan to make the payments.”
