New Delhi, May 13: Billionaire Anil Agarwal on Tuesday announced plans to delist his Indian flagship Vedanta Ltd by buying out nearly 49 per cent of public shareholding at Rs 87.5 apiece. Vedanta Ltd, whose shares have fallen more than 40 per cent this year, houses commodity as well as oil and gas business.

The company had a market value of under Rs 33,200 crore going by Tuesday's closing price of Rs 89.30 on the BSE. At the offer price of Rs 87.5, Agarwal's Vedanta Resources will have to shell out Rs 16,218 crore to acquire all of the public shareholding.

In a regulatory filing, Vedanta said it has received a letter dated May 12, 2020, from Vedanta Resources Ltd (VRL) expressing intention to acquire all fully paid-up equity shares of the company that are held by the public shareholders.

Agarwal's Volcan Investments Ltd has in the past taken his London-listed Vedanta Resources private as part of the drive to simplify the corporate structure.

"Vedanta Group continues its efforts to simplify the group structure. This proposed transaction is fully aligned to the robust strategy which has been pursued over the years," Agarwal told PTI. "Due to the impact of COVID-19 pandemic, we have accelerated the strategy in this challenging environment to ensure support for meaningful deleveraging and to enable us to continue to invest in the growth of the business."

VRL along with the other members of the promoter group presently holds 51.06 per cent of the shareholding, excluding American Depository Shares (ADS) issued by the company.

As on date, the public shareholders hold 48.94 per cent of the paid-up equity share capital. In addition, the company has issued 6.54 crore American Depository Shares against 26.17 crore number of underlying equity shares.

"VRL has informed us of their willingness to accept the equity shares of the company tendered by the public shareholders in the delisting offer at a price of Rs 87.5 per equity share which represents a premium of 9.9 per cent over the closing market price of Rs 79.6 as on May 11, 2020," the filing said.

Pursuant to this, VRL has requested the board of directors of Vedanta Ltd to convene a board meeting to consider and approve the delisting proposal, seeking the approval of the shareholders of the company by way of a special resolution through postal ballot.