Pan-Asia Catalysts/Events, Quiddity Advisors

Travis Lundy

HK Type 4 license through Ballingal Investment Advisors Ltd. ("BIA" or "BIAL")

BACKGROUND
I have 20+yrs experience in Asia doing alternative strategies (i.e. non-delta1 non long-only) in fixed income, equity derivatives, and activist/catalyst/event-driven and long-short equity strategies with most of that time spent managing money. 

4 years in fixed income macro, 8 years running internal hedge fund and 4yrs investment banking at Citi in Japan, 3 years running an Asia multi-strat portfolio at a hedge fund, 4+yrs as an independent special situations analyst.

Pan-Asia Catalysts/Events

Vedanta To Eliminate Its ADRs - Creates VERY Interesting Possibilities

Vedanta's Plan to Eliminate ADRs - THE Trade

Vedanta Promoters Buy MORE Increasing Eventiness, But There Are Headwinds

Vedanta (VEDL) Offer Coming To A Close: Watch For Antics

Vedanta (VEDL) Awaits Open Offer Revision. Now Less Event-y More Commodity-y

Vedanta (VEDL) Open Offer Raised in Price and Size!

Quiddity Advisors

Event-Driven

<a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/vedanta-ltd" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:514:1" rel="noopener">Vedanta Ltd (VEDL IN)</a> has, for the last year, been subject to dramatic corporate actions which have roiled the share price, and expectations. The launch last May of a Delisting Proposal by the promoters when the shares were trading sub Rs. 90/share led to a rally in the shares which could not even track peer stock performance, and when the Delisting Proposal failed, shares dropped to a dramatically low level, despite the fact that Vedanta owned its shareholders a substantial dividend from the pay-through of dividends from <a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/hindustan-zinc-ltd" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:8688:1" rel="noopener">Hindustan Zinc (HZ IN)</a>. As commodity prices continued to rally, and VEDL paid a big dividend in October 2020, it looked like the time to double-up. Everyone "knew" the promoters were willing to pay 40-50% than the post-Delisting Proposal failure to take the whole thing private. I expected a buyback. 10 days after the CEO said "we have no plans to buy more shares" we got an off-market block purchase of 5% by the promoters in December at Rs 160, followed a couple of weeks later by a proposed Open Offer to buy another 10%, which was later upsized and up-priced - by 47%, and still the Promoters could only get 10% of the 17.5% they sought to buy. A month on from that and the shares are nearly 10% higher than the Open Offer Price while a Peer Basket is largely unchanged from two months back. This means VEDL shares are again (as they were just before  at their high point against Peers since pre-pandemic. The current situation of covid-19 and variant spread in India is terrible and one could imagine that some drastic measures may still be taken to contain the spread, which could slow down the economy dramatically. The 70% catchup vs peers to reach the December 2019 level (as of post-Delisting Proposal failure) has now been caught up. The VEDL 2-3yr forward EV/EBIT ratio is now less than 1 turn from its long-term average spread to peers. More below the fold.

Vedanta Ltd (VEDL IN) has, for the last year, been subject to dramatic corporate actions which have roiled the share price, and expectations. The launch last May of a Delisting Proposal by the promoters when the shares were trading sub Rs. 90/share led to a rally in the shares which could not even track peer stock performance, and when the Delisting Proposal failed, shares dropped to a dramatically low level, despite the fact that Vedanta owned its shareholders a substantial dividend from the pay-through of dividends from Hindustan Zinc (HZ IN). As commodity prices continued to rally, and VEDL paid a big dividend in October 2020, it looked like the time to double-up. Everyone "knew" the promoters were willing to pay 40-50% than the post-Delisting Proposal failure to take the whole thing private. I expected a buyback. 10 days after the CEO said "we have no plans to buy more shares" we got an off-market block purchase of 5% by the promoters in December at Rs 160, followed a couple of weeks later by a proposed Open Offer to buy another 10%, which was later upsized and up-priced - by 47%, and still the Promoters could only get 10% of the 17.5% they sought to buy. A month on from that and the shares are nearly 10% higher than the Open Offer Price while a Peer Basket is largely unchanged from two months back. This means VEDL shares are again (as they were just before  at their high point against Peers since pre-pandemic. The current situation of covid-19 and variant spread in India is terrible and one could imagine that some drastic measures may still be taken to contain the spread, which could slow down the economy dramatically. The 70% catchup vs peers to reach the December 2019 level (as of post-Delisting Proposal failure) has now been caught up. The VEDL 2-3yr forward EV/EBIT ratio is now less than 1 turn from its long-term average spread to peers. More below the fold.  

Vedanta Now Caught Up With Peers - A Different Skew Ahead