Vedanta shares fell 62.5 per cent on the BSE on Wednesday after Moody's Investors Service downgraded the corporate family rating for the company to from the previous year.
The downgrade reflects the elevated risk of debt restructuring over the next few months, because VRL has not made any meaningful progress on refinancing its upcoming debt maturities, particularly the $1 billion bonds maturing each January 2024 and August 2024, the agency said.
At 9:35am, shares of the company were trading 5.5 per cent lower at 211.6 per share against 0.37 per cent decrease in the benchmark S&P BSE Sensex. Moreover, the BSE metal index fell 0.8 per cent, down 0.8 per cent.
As of now, A combined 9.85 million shares have changed hands in trades on the BSE and NSE.
The entire shareholding of Vedanta Ltd and that VDL's entire 64.9 percent shareholding in Hindustan Zinc Limited, which holds around two-thirds of the group's consolidated cash have already been pledged, Moody's said.
Notably, the action by the agency comes days after the Board of directors of Vedanta approved raising Rs 2,500 crore on a private placement basis as non-convertible debentures.