Agarwal wants to model Vedanta on GE lines

Patna-born mining mogul Anil Agarwal plans to convert his Vedanta Resources into a GE-like institution — a board-run conglomerate run by best professionals. For, he does not see his children taking over the mantle from him. Undeterred by the slump in commodity prices eroding his net worth by a few hundred million dollars, Agarwal, is planning new investments across businesses from metals to oil and gas.

In an interview to PTI, he said the commodities markets would recover next year, after a spell of consolidation in 2016. “My children will not come (and take over from me). They are doing their own thing,” he said.

Vedanta, he said, “will be an institution, something like GE. Fundamentally, it has to be aggressive, low cost and innovative. And, should be able to attract the best of people.”

General Electric Company (GE), incorporated on April 15, 1892, is a diversified infrastructure and financial services company, which is 57.5 per cent owned by institutions. It is a board-run company which hires best professionals to run it.

Agarwal, who rose from running a scrap-metal business to become one of the India's wealthiest tycoons with his business empire spanning across mining and petroleum, has two children — a son based in Dubai about whom not much is known and a daughter, Priya, who is on board of some of his companies, including oil explorer Cairn India. Forbes magazine estimates his wealth at $1.5 billion.

He, in September 2014, had announced that he and his family will put 75 per cent of their wealth in a charitable trust.

He dismissed concerns among some analysts that stress on Vedanta's balance sheet risked breaches of covenants with creditors if commodity prices did not recover.

"We have enough resources to service our debt. In fact, we keep reducing our debt every year" by using funds from free cash generation, he said.

Vedanta has long carried a heavy debt burden, a legacy of the growth of its copper, aluminium, iron ore and energy businesses as Agarwal tries to build India's first integrated global resources business on the lines of Rio Tinto of the US or BHP Billiton of Australia.