Another storm brewing?

While Gautam Adani’s unrelenting growth and stunning falls dominate the news, another well-known entrepreneur may be facing a small storm. Vedanta Resources Ltd., formerly listed on the London Stock Exchange, is heavily indebted, with a $1 billion bond due in January. The one partner he can’t afford to irritate was angered by his most recent attempt to lighten the load.

Agarwal was toying with the idea of merging debt-ridden Vedanta Resources with its cash-rich, Mumbai-listed unit, Vedanta Ltd., around this time last year, when the US Federal Reserve was still starting to raise 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.

Vedanta Resources did, however, succeed in reducing its net debt load from nearly $10 billion in March of last year to just under $8 billion. According to S&P Global Inc., the listed unit’s parent and largest shareholder is “very likely” to fulfill its obligations through September 2023 after paying a dividend last month. All is well thus far. However, Agarwal ran into trouble when he attempted to raise funds for $1.5 billion in loan and bond obligations between September 2018 and January 2024.