D-Day for Vedanta; Agarwal needs 67% ayes by day’s end

livemint.com:

Vedanta Resources, the London-based parent of India’s Vedanta Ltd, has received between 20% and 40% investor votes in favour of its $3.8 billion bond restructuring exercise as of 29 December, people aware of the matter said. For the company’s proposal to go through, more than two-thirds of each bond’s investors need to vote, of which at least two-third votes need to be cast in favour of the restructuring. Vedanta had on 13 December sought investor approval to delay the maturity of several of its outstanding corporate bonds to better manage its debt repayment cycle.

For the bonds maturing in January 2024 and August 2024, the company has received consent from 20% and 35% of the bonds’ investors, respectively. It has also received consent from 41% and 25% investors for the bonds maturing in March 2025 and April 2026, respectively. The deadline for voting is 2 January, after which the company will meet its bondholders on 4 January.

One banker said that many investors prefer to wait till the last moment before casting their votes in such matters. “The main activity happens in the last 48 hours," he said on condition of anonymity. “Unfortunately for them, the last 48 hours happened to be around New Year’s Eve." The company has assurances from around 80% investors that they will vote in favour of the restructuring, said one of the people cited above.

Only about 3% of the votes logged until Friday have been against the restructuring proposal, improving the company’s prospects of succeeding. Bankers aware of the matter said the terms of restructuring are favourable and acceptable to investors, making it likely that the proposal will get their nod. Earlier, an ad hoc group of bondholders had advised fellow investors against