MUMBAI: Vedanta Limited has been recognized as an ‘Honored Company’ for its Investor Relations program by Institutional Investor magazine in its 2017 All-Asia (ex-Japan) Executive Team rankings. This accolade is awarded only to 4.7% of the total 2,510 companies covered. Vedanta also ranks among the top 3 companies in the Basic Materials sector.
“We are indeed humbled by this recognition from our global investors and analysts. Our teams deserve the credit of Vedanta’s leading rank, a testimony of our world-class management and transparent disclosures. We remain committed to strive for excellence, and create even higher benchmarks in the global natural resources sector,” said Tom Albanese, CEO, Vedanta.
The company has been recognized for the ‘Best Investor Relations’ (nominated by the sell-side), in the Basic Materials industry. Tom Albanese, CEO, Vedanta Limited, has been ranked as the ‘Best CEO’ (nominated by the sell-side), while Ashwin Bajaj, Director-Investor Relations, Vedanta Limited, won the second place in the ‘Best Investor Relations Professional’ category (nominated by the sell-side) in the industry in Asia (ex-Japan).
Vedanta has a market capitalisation of about US$15 billion and is a part of India’s premier index, the Nifty 50. Vedanta is also among the top contributors to the country’s exchequer at nearly Rs. 40,000 crores in FY 2017.
The company declared record dividends of Rs. 7,100 crores last year, amounting to about Rs. 19.50 per share. Its subsidiary Hindustan Zinc too announced record dividends of Rs. 27,157 crore during the period.
Institutional Investor is a leading business to business publisher, focused primarily on international finance. For over 30 years, Institutional Investor has recognized people and firms in the financial services industry for excellence.
‘Honored Companies’ earned at least one overall top 3 combined Buy-side and Sell-side for Best CEO, Best, CFO, Best Investment Relations Professional, or Best IR Program.
Voters rank the top-four companies that they believe demonstrate excellence in each of the IR characteristics or performance attributes. Their votes are then weighted by the rank they have assigned each company and aggregated to produce buy-side, sell-side and combined buy- and sell-side rankings for each sector.
The Award process has voters rank IR programs, evaluating them on attributes of accessibility of senior executives, constructive conference calls/meetings, quality corporate documents and investor kits, timely and appropriate financial disclosure and quick and thorough responses to requests.
In 2017, global Buy-side participation in the survey tripled to 3,074 compared to 1,007 in 2016, while Sell-side participation rose sharply to 868, up from 611 in 2016. This resulted in deep and detailed data to support the results, and a record number of companies nominated: 2,510 companies across 18 sectors, compared to 1,541 companies last year.
Respondents from the buy side are associated with institutions that collectively manage US$1.5 trillion in Asia equities excluding Japan.