Hindalco Board OKs share, warrants issue to fund Novelis takeover

New Delhi, Mar 2 (UNI) Country's largest aluminium producer Hindalco Industries will go for a preferential issue of shares and warrants to raise funds to finance its 5.9-billion-dollar acquisition of Canada's Novelis.

The company's board has approved to issue up to 6.75 crore equity shares of Re 1 each amounting Rs 1,200 crore and up to eight crore warrants valuing Rs 1,400 crore to the promoters.

The members of the company will meet on March 28 to decide up on the issue.

The Aditya Birla Group company earlier this month announced that it will acquire the Canadian firm in an all-cash deal to become a global leader in aluminium rolled products space and one of the largest aluminium producers in Asia. The merged entity will have a market capitalisation of over 7.5 billion dollars.

Novelis has operations in 12 countries with an employee-base of over 12,000 people.

After excluding the 2.4 billion dollar debt, the equity component of the deal works out to 3.6 billion dollars. Novelis shareholders will get 44.93 dollars per share in cash.

Post the acquisition, Hindalco will enter the list of world's largest companies with combined revenues of 10 billion dollars.

UNI