https://www.miningweekly.com

Agarwal offers Anglo help in tapping India's 1.3bn people

12th April 2018

By: Bloomberg

  

Font size: - +

JOHANNESBURG – Anglo American’s biggest shareholder, billionaire Anil Agarwal, has offered to help the mining giant expand into India.

“That’s a big market for them,” Agarwal said in an interview in Lusaka. “I am going to help them if they need to open up that market for them to work there.”

The mining tycoon wasn’t explicit about whether he wanted to assist Anglo with increasing sales to India or to start operating mines there. Currently Anglo has no operational presence in the world’s second-most populous nation, although most of the diamonds its De Beers unit sells are cut and polished in the country.

Agarwal surprised Anglo’s management last year when he took a 21% stake in the company. The structure of the purchase, done via a mandatory exchange bond issued by a family company, effectively means he rents the shares until the bond matures in 2020.

The shares have rallied since he took control of them in two tranches last year.

“I think I have been proven right and I am very pleased that the share price has increased,” said Agarwal, who also controls miner Vedanta Resources. “I am also appreciating management, management is doing extremely good work.”

Since Agarwal doesn’t benefit much from a rising stock price, analysts have speculated that he might take an activist role in the blue-chip miner. In 2016, Agarwal proposed a tie-up between Anglo and the zinc unit of Vedanta, and he said last year the combination would have been a good match.

Agarwal, who’s repeatedly said he’s not an activist investor, continued to stick to that message.

“At the moment I am very happy with the stake,” he said.

Edited by Bloomberg

Comments

The content you are trying to access is only available to subscribers.

If you are already a subscriber, you can Login Here.

If you are not a subscriber, you can subscribe now, by selecting one of the below options.

For more information or assistance, please contact us at subscriptions@creamermedia.co.za.

Option 1 (equivalent of R125 a month):

Receive a weekly copy of Creamer Media's Engineering News & Mining Weekly magazine
(print copy for those in South Africa and e-magazine for those outside of South Africa)
Receive daily email newsletters
Access to full search results
Access archive of magazine back copies
Access to Projects in Progress
Access to ONE Research Report of your choice in PDF format

Option 2 (equivalent of R375 a month):

All benefits from Option 1
PLUS
Access to Creamer Media's Research Channel Africa for ALL Research Reports, in PDF format, on various industrial and mining sectors including Electricity; Water; Energy Transition; Hydrogen; Roads, Rail and Ports; Coal; Gold; Platinum; Battery Metals; etc.

Already a subscriber?

Forgotten your password?

MAGAZINE & ONLINE

SUBSCRIBE

RESEARCH CHANNEL AFRICA

SUBSCRIBE

CORPORATE PACKAGES

CLICK FOR A QUOTATION