India’s Hindustan Zinc on Tuesday nearly doubled its dividend to 19 rupees per share, totaling 80.28 billion rupees ($958 million), a move that is expected to help group parent Vedanta Resources reduce its debt.
Hindustan Zinc is majority owned by metals-to-oil conglomerate Vedanta Ltd, which in turn is owned by UK-based Vedanta Resources. The Indian government owns most of the remaining stake in Hindustan Zinc.
Shares of the miner rose 3.5%, while those of its Indian parent Vedanta Ltd were up 0.7%. Vedanta Ltd owned 63.4% of Hindustan Zinc, as of Aug. 19.
Vedanta Resources had a debt of $6 billion as of March 31 and is seeking to cut its debt by $3 billion over the next three years, it said earlier this year.
It has been eyeing various fund-raising options to achieve that goal.
Hindustan Zinc has set August 28 as the dividend payment’s record date, or the day the company finalizes the list of shareholders eligible for the payout.
Tuesday’s announcement takes Hindustan Zinc’s total payout for the year to 122.53 billion rupees, higher than the 55 billion rupees from last year.
($1 = 83.7875 Indian rupees)
(By Manvi Pant and Indranil Sarkar; Editing by Savio D’Souza and Nivedita Bhattacharjee)
