Billionaire Agarwal increases stake in Anglo American to 19%

LONDON – Billionaire Anil Agarwal has increased his stake in Anglo American to 19%, making him the biggest shareholder in the London blue-chip mining company.

Agarwal’s Volcan Holdings Plc bought 102.2-million shares in Anglo, according to a regulatory filing Friday. The Indian billionaire, who said last month that he planned to buy as much as £1.5-billion ($2-billion) of the stock, paid an average of £14.68, based on that maximum target amount.

Anglo shares traded at £14.65 on Friday. Volcan already had 160.7-million shares, according to an April filing.

Agarwal’s stake makes him biggest investor, ahead of South Africa’s Public Investment Corp. The billionaire has said the investment is in a personal capacity and that he has no plans to act as an activist, though he amassed his stake through a mandatory exchangeable bond issued by Volcan. The structure effectively means he rents the shares until the bond matures in 2020 and doesn’t benefit much from a rising stock price, leading analysts to speculate that he might be planning to force a break-up or a merger.

Agarwal has a controlling stake in Vedanta Resources Plc, which in turn controls Vedanta and Hindustan Zinc. After a failed approach to merge Hindustan Zinc with Anglo last year, Agarwal said the combination was a “good match” and that “one and one wasn’t going to be two, but 11.”