 "A bird flies by the Vedanta office building in Mumbai")
Vedanta Resources on Tuesday reported widening of its net loss to $324.5 million in the first half of the current financial year as the mining conglomerate faced challenging commodities market. The net loss attributable to equity holders of the parent stood at $12.8 million in the year-ago period, the company said in a statement.
Its revenue fell by 12 per cent to $5.7 billion in the April-September period of 2015-16, from $6.5 billion during the six months of 2014-15.
Vedanta Resources chairman Anil Agarwal said: "We have delivered a sound financial performance over the past six months and maximised free cash flow, while facing challenging commodity markets. This accomplishment is attributable to cost optimisation across our diversified asset portfolio."
The London Stock Exchange-listed firm's exposure to meeting India's future resources demands enhances its growth opportunities, in addition to its global prospects, he added.
“Our financial performance, however, has been impacted by low commodity prices with revenues down 12 per cent at $5.7 billion,” he said.
Aggarwal said that during the first half of this financial year the firm generated free cash flow post project capex of $1.3 billion driven by reduction in opex, capex and better working capital management.
In line with its stated strategic priority of reducing debt and increasing cash flows, Vedanta Resources reduced gross debt by $200 million and net debt by $0.9 billion as compared to 2014-15, he noted.
Agarwal, however said: “During this period we have witnessed continued volatility in commodity markets, creating challenging conditions for all resource companies. As a result of this market uncertainty, the Board has decided not to pay an interim dividend and will review dividend payments in May 2016 when we deliver our 2015-16 results.”
Vedanta Resources reduced its net debt by $0.9 billion to $7.5 billion for the six months ended September.
On outlook, Agarwal said: "From my perspective, though the global resource sector outlook is challenging over the short-to-medium term, I am optimistic about the longer-term future."
Following a disciplined approach to capital spending and efficiency in operations is key to managing this period of volatility, he added.
"Our efforts over past few quarters have been on driving efficiencies across our diversified portfolio of tier-one assets, optimising operating expenditure and deploying capital in a disciplined manner taking measured steps to drive positive free cash flow at each of our businesses," he said.
