New Delhi, Oct 15 (PTI) Mining mogul Anil Agarwal hassaid he will not seek a board position on blue-chip Britishminer Anglo American Plc even after becoming its largestshareholder, and instead will support the management.
With over 21 per cent stake in the company that owns theiconic diamond brand De Beers, he wants to push for jointventure or technical collaboration between Anglo and his owncompanies for prospecting for diamonds, copper and coal inIndia.
"It is a fantastic company. There cannot be any companybetter than that. It is a 100-year old company. We willsupport the management. We like the management," he told PTI.
The family trust of the chairman of diversified minerVedanta has purchased about 9 per cent more shares, worth upto 1.5 billion pounds, on top of 2 billion pounds spent inMarch for acquiring a 12.43 per cent holding.
The stake has given him an indirect foothold in world'slargest diamond producer, De Beers.
"It is a very big stake. I want to operate as ashareholder without a board position for now," he said.
Agarwal said he believes there is a synergy between Angloand his firm Vedanta. "There can be joint ventures. They canwork together," he said. "They (Anglo) have technology andIndia offers opportunities for mining of diamond, copper, coaletc."The mining baron said he would push for collaborationwith Vedanta and Anglo for mining, particularly of diamonds inIndia.
Last year, Agarwal had made an unsuccessful offer tomerge part of his mining empire with Anglo American.
Agarwal said he believes that Anglo American, a companyfounded by the Oppenheimer dynasty in South Africa a centuryago, is capable of getting technology and skilled people toIndia which will help in increasing domestic production ofmetals like copper, diamond and gold.
Anglo American is one of the world's top five mininggroups, alongside BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto, Vale and Glencoreand has copper mines in Chile, iron ore operations in Braziland South Africa as well as De Beers, the iconic diamondproducer.
An indirect foothold in De Beers would increase Agarwal'spresence in one more commodity after zinc, aluminium, ironore, copper, power, silver and lead.
On an average, De Beers sells rough diamonds worth aboutUSD 5.2 billion every year, half of which are purchased byIndian diamantaires based in Surat, Mumbai, Antwerp, HongKong, South Africa and Dubai.
The diamonds sold by De Beers to its clients tricklesdown to the secondary market in Surat and Mumbai, where theyare sold to small and medium diamantaires and even bigcompanies.
India's diamond production is almost negligible and it isthe largest consumer of rough diamond in the world, importing80 per cent of total world production with an import bill ofabout USD 15 billion.
Recently Rio Tinto, world's biggest mining company,exited from the Bunder Diamond mines in Madhya Pradesh due todelays in securing regulatory approvals. The Bunder mine hasestablished diamond reserves.
Vedanta has made significant progress on its strategicpriorities over the last year, including completion of theVedanta Ltd-Cairn India merger, ramping up production from itsportfolio of low cost assets, increasing free cash flow, andoptimising its balance sheet through two successful liabilitymanagement exercises in January and August 2017, respectively.
De Beers, the world's leading diamond exploration, miningand marketing company, producing over 30 million carats ofdiamonds per annum, 35 per cent of global rough diamondproduction.
Anglo, which is listed on the London and Johannesburgstock exchanges, has revenue of USD 23 billion, EBITDA of USD6.1 billion and market cap of USD 20 billion. Its operationsextend across Southern Africa, North and South America,Australia, Asia and Europe and employs 113,000 employeesworldwide.
Its portfolio of mining businesses includes preciousmetals and minerals, base metals and minerals – copper,nickel, niobium and phosphates and bulk commodities – iron oreand manganese, metallurgical coal and thermal coal. PTI ANZMKJ.
This is unedited, unformatted feed from the Press Trust of India wire.