Anil Agarwal -The Story Of A Young Bihari Boy Becoming Industrial Billionaire

Anil Agarwal announcing an investment of ₹1.54 lakh crore to set up a semiconductor chipset manufacturing plant in Gujarat, in partnership with Taiwan-based Foxconn. He also announced an investment of ₹25,000 crores in Odisha a key investment for Vedanta topping up his initial investment of ₹80,000 crores in the coastal state. From a son of a small aluminium conductor business to a world-class industrialist. The story of a young Bihari boy.

Background

• Agarwal was born and brought up in a Marwadi Family in Patna, Bihar, India. His father Dwarka Prasad Agarwal had a small aluminium conductor business. He studied at Miller High School, Patna. He decided to join his father's business, making aluminium conductors instead of going to university. At 19, Agarwal left the comfort of his family home and Patna, leaving for the hustle of Bombay.
• He began trading in scrap metal, collecting it from cable companies in other states and selling it in Mumbai. In 1976, Anil Agarwal acquired Shamsher Sterling Corporation, a manufacturer of enamelled copper, among other products, with a bank loan. In which he went bankrupt.
• To access international capital markets, Anil Agarwal and his team incorporated Vedanta Resources Plc in 2003 in London. But what triggered Vedanta’s listing on the London Stock Exchange was Agarwal’s involvement with Harshad Mehta in a bid to make a comeback, Mehta drove up the prices of three stocks – Agarwal’s Sterlite, Videocon and BPL. 
• At the time of its listing, Vedanta Resources Plc was the first Indian firm to be listed on London Stock Exchange, on 10 December 2003, Vedanta Resources became the parent company of the group through a process of an internal restructuring of group companies and their shareholding. It is a globally diversified natural resources conglomerate, with interests in zinc, lead, silver, copper, iron ore, aluminium, power generation, and oil and gas.

The Mega-Merger

In 2012, Vedanta Resources Plc announced a merger of its Indian firms – Sesa Goa, Sterlite, Vedanta Aluminium, and Madras Aluminium into a single entity named Sesa Sterlite. The merged entity, Sesa Sterlite, was valued at over $20 billion, making it the seventh largest global diversified natural resources major. At the time, Agarwal said it would result in a savings of ₹1,000 crores every year.

The Story Of Vedanta Going Private

Getting Vedanta listed on the LSE was one of Agarwal’s dreams, but 15 years later, in 2018, the mining magnate delisted the company and took it private. Vedanta was not much valued during the commodity slump of 2018, and a majority of the capital expenditure had already been made by then. Agarwal sensed an opportunity to take the company private at a lower price and reap the rewards during the next cyclical upswing of commodities.

Today, he is an industrialist billionaire, announcing an investment of ₹1.54 lakh crore to set up a semiconductor chipset manufacturing plant in Gujarat, in partnership with Taiwan-based Foxconn. He also announced an investment of ₹25,000 crores in Odisha a key investment for Vedanta topping up his initial investment of ₹80,000 crores in the coastal state.