Vedanta pledges Hindustan Zinc stake to fund delisting
MUMBAI : Metals and mining conglomerate Vedanta Ltd has pledged its entire shareholding in subsidiary Hindustan Zinc Ltd (HZL) to help fund its proposal to delist from the stock exchanges.
An exchange filing by HZL on Saturday showed that Vedanta, the majority owner of the company, had created an encumbrance on its entire shareholding of 64.92% through the share pledge and non-disposal undertaking in favour of SBICap Trustee Co. Ltd. The transaction includes about 2.1 billion shares by non-disposal undertaking and 6.26 billion shares in pledge, according to the filing.
The covid-19 pandemic and the resulting economic slump that sent stock prices plummeting has brought on a wave of voluntary delisting proposals as promoters try to buy back shares cheap. In the last three months, majority owners of Adani Power and Hexaware Technologies have also proposed buying out all publicly-traded shares of their companies, while delisting rumours have swirled around Diageo’s United Spirits, the Indian arm of US-based IT firm Oracle.
