Vedanta weighs Zambia copper IPO to fund $1 billion investment
Vedanta Resources, the mining and energy company controlled by Indian billionaire Anil Agarwal, is considering listing its Zambian copper unit to raise the funds it needs to invest in the asset.
鈥淟isting is an option,鈥 Ajay Goel, chief financial officer of Mumbai-listed Vedanta Ltd., said Friday in an interview with Bloomberg TV. 鈥淚t is hard to give a timeline definitely, but it鈥檚 under active consideration.鈥
He did not provide details on the size or location of the potential float.
The company regained control of the Konkola Copper Mines assets in Zambia last year, after the southern African nation鈥檚 government triggered its provisional liquidation about five years earlier, accusing Vedanta of lying about expansion plans and paying too little tax. The company has pledged to invest $1 billion in the operation as part of negotiations with the state to secure its return to Konkola.
Konkola boasts resources with copper concentrations much higher than those in South America 鈥 today鈥檚 biggest global source of the metal needed to build electric cars and artificial intelligence data centers. But the deposits are also deep underground, where vast rivers make the operation one of the world鈥檚 wettest.
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