Highly leveraged Indian tycoons are having a rough time. Gautam Adani’s $236 billion infrastructure empire has shrunk by more than three-fifths in a month. But while his relentless rise and spectacular fall hog headlines, a smaller storm may be brewing for another well-known magnate. Anil Agarwal’s once-London-listed Vedanta Resources Ltd. has a pile of debt, including a $1 billion bond due January. Yet, his most recent attempt to trim the load has upset the one partner he can’t afford to annoy: New Delhi.

Around this time last year, when the US Federal Reserve was still to begin raising interest rates to tame inflation and Russia’s war in Ukraine had started to send commodities surging to their best quarter in more than three decades, Agarwal was toying with the idea of merging debt-laden Vedanta Resources with its cash-rich, Mumbai-listed unit, Vedanta Ltd. That plan, which was reported by Bloomberg News, didn’t go anywhere.

However, Vedanta Resources did manage to shed its net-debt burden from almost $10 billion in March last year to a little under $8 billion. With the listed unit declaring a dividend last month, its parent and majority shareholder is “highly likely” to meet its obligations until September 2023, according to S&P Global Inc. So far so good. But it was when Agarwal tried to secure the finances for $1.5 billion in loan and bond repayments between September this year and January 2024 that he hit a roadblock.

What was supposed to be a quick dash to the ATM has become an uncertain enough adventure for Vedanta Resources bondholders to drive the price of the August 2024 note below 70 cents on the dollar. The next few weeks will be crucial for fundraising. If it fails, the issuer’s B- credit rating, already deep in the junk-bond category, could come under pressure, S&P said this month. Adani’s net debt pile of $24 billion may be three times as large as Agarwal’s, but his bonds are still rated at the lowest rung of investment grade.

Source - Business Standard