Seeking further growth and acquisition opportunities where we can leverage our transactional, project execution and operational skills and experience
Our successful acquisitions of HZL, BALCO, KCM and Sesa Goa have contributed substantially to our growth. We continually seek new growth and acquisition opportunities in the metals and mining and related businesses in India and elsewhere, including through government privatisation programmes, where we can leverage our skills and experience. We continue to closely monitor the resource markets in our existing lines of business as well as seek out opportunities in complementary businesses such as coal mining. By selecting the opportunities for growth and acquisition carefully and leveraging our skills and experience, we seek to continue to expand our business while maintaining a strong balance sheet and investment grade credit profile. Our recent actions in pursuing this strategy include the following:
- In April 2007, we acquired a 51% ownership interest in Sesa Goa, India’s largest producer-exporter of iron ore in the private sector. We believe this business is complementary to our existing mining businesses and provides us a leading strategic position in a business we believe has attractive long-term fundamentals. In our first year of ownership, Sesa Goa achieved a 17.0% year-over-year increase in production. We are undertaking feasibility studies for further increases in production capacity through additional debottlenecking and expansion initiatives, which we believe will enable Sesa Goa to achieve 25.0 million tpa of production capacity in the next few years.
