Vedanta Resources weighs Zambia copper IPO to fund $1 billion investment

Vedanta Resources, the mining and energy firm overseen by Indian tycoon Anil Agarwal, is contemplating the public listing of its Zambian copper division to secure the capital necessary for investing in the asset.

“Listing is an option,” Ajay Goel, chief financial officer of Mumbai-listed Vedanta Ltd., said Friday in an interview. “It is hard to give a timeline definitely, but it’s under active consideration.”

Last year, the company reasserted control over the Konkola Copper Mines assets in Zambia, following the government of the southern African country initiating its provisional liquidation nearly five years prior, alleging that Vedanta had misrepresented its expansion plans and paid insufficient taxes.

The firm has committed to investing $1 billion in the operation as a component of talks with the state to ensure its return to Konkola. Konkola features resources that possess copper concentrations significantly greater than those found in South America — currently the leading global supplier of the metal essential for constructing electric vehicles and artificial intelligence data centers.

However, the deposits are located deep underground, where immense rivers make the operation one of the most waterlogged in the world.