Vedanta's Anil Agarwal Targets $100 Billion Market Cap, Hands Reins to Professionals

Anil Agarwal has set a $100 billion market capitalisation target for Vedanta's group companies, nearly doubling their combined value from about $55 billion today, and he says none of his family members will run the businesses.

The billionaire, who marked 50 years as an entrepreneur this year, told The Times of India that professionals will manage each of the group's ten major companies on an incentive basis. The family will keep control through its London-listed holding company, which will own 54% of each entity.

"Our vision is that, given our present position, our market cap will reach $100 billion in about a year or two," Agarwal said. "And in the long term each of these companies have the potential to become $50–100 billion companies."

The numbers stack up fast. Group revenue stands at around $30 billion; Agarwal wants it at $50 billion within two years. Over the next three years, Vedanta is investing $25 billion to expand its operations. Once that spending is complete, Agarwal said, overall capacity will more than double.

What changes for women in the workforce?

Agarwal has set a target for women to make up 35% of the group's workforce, up from 22% now. He framed it alongside his broader legacy goal: "There should be a legacy of building very good companies with strong rules and regulations."

How did a Patna scrap-metal trader build a metals empire?

Agarwal's story starts in Patna, where his father ran a factory making iron grill gates and aluminium conductors. He worked there for five years and started at 14 — standard practice, he said, for children in business families of that era.

He arrived in Bombay at the end of 1975. The first public listing came with Sterlite Cable, followed by a copper rod plant in Lonavala and a copper smelter in Tuticorin, both built with imported technology and machinery. "That was the turning point," he said.

The global push was uneven. In 1989, Agarwal moved to New York and stayed four years, but found little success. The turning point came from Indian politics instead: the Narasimha Rao government abolished the licence raj after taking power in 1991. Agarwal returned in 1992-93, set up a jelly-filled cable factory, and growth followed.

Then came London. In 1995, he acquired a factory called Dura-Tube for $3 million, ran it for a few years, and sold it for $7 million — a clean doubling. "After that, when we went to London, it took us three or four years," he said.

What does the group look like now?

Across listed and unlisted entities, Vedanta controls ten major companies. The portfolio spans:

• Aluminium, copper, zinc, lead, silver and other metals
• A large renewable energy business
• A strong transmission business

The structure Agarwal is putting in place splits ownership from management. The family's foreign holding company keeps its 54% stake in each of the ten companies, while professionals run operations with incentive-based pay. No family member takes an executive role.

Why does Agarwal bet on India's entrepreneurs?

Agarwal's read on India's business environment is blunt. "India is a country where people are born entrepreneurs," he said. "The more you trust and support them, the more the country will progress and the more employment will be created. That is the key."

His own arc backs the argument. A licence-raj-era returnee who built a $30 billion-revenue metals and energy group now wants each of his companies worth $50–100 billion in the long term. If the $25 billion capex programme lands on schedule, Vedanta's doubling of capacity over three years will be the test of whether the $100 billion market cap goal is arithmetic or ambition.