Shares of Mumbai-headquartered mining giant Vedanta Ltd jumped 1 percent in Monday's trade as the company's board will meet later today (May 22) to consider and approve the first interim dividend of financial year (FY) 2024. At 12:10 pm, the script of the Anil Agarwal-led company was trading at Rs 285.80 apiece, up 1.37 percent.

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The stock has been a laggard, giving negative returns of 7 percent in the last one year versus nearly 13 percent returns given by the Nifty50 during the same period, according to data from Trendlyne. The stock has also been highly volatile and traded with a 1-year beta of 1.48, according to Trendlyne data.

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Vedanta shares are currently trading at a discount of 16 percent from its 52-week high of Rs 340.75, which it hit in January 2023.

The multinational mining firm had on May 17 informed the stock exchanges that the record date for the purpose of determining the entitlement of the equity shareholders for the said dividend has been fixed on Tuesday, May 30, 2023. If declared, this would be the first interim dividend by Vedanta for FY24.

Vedanta has declared 39 dividends since July 23, 2001. In FY23, the company declared total dividend of Rs 101.50 per share.

For FY24, the mining major didn't provide any guidance on the dividend payout, said domestic brokerage house Motilal Oswal Securities. The brokerage highlighted that the company's net debt stood at Rs 44,500 crore, up 115 percent on-year due to dividend payout and higher capex. The brokerage has a target price of Rs 280 per share on the counter.

Vedanta's FY23 dividend payout helped reduce debt at parent Vedanta Resources, according to Systematix Institutional Equities, which said dividend is likely to remain elevated at Rs 60-80 per share over FY24 and FY25, driven by a sharp reduction in energy costs, especially for coal, suggesting a yield of 22-29 percent providing strong downside support.

"The meeting of the board of directors of the company (the 'Board') is proposed to be scheduled on Monday, May 22, 2023, to consider and approve the first interim dividend on equity shares, if any, for the financial year 2023-24," the company said in a regulatory filing late Wednesday.

Vedanta had recently posted a 67.5 percent on-year drop in its March quarter net profit at Rs 1,881 crore. The mining giant's revenue from operations tumbled 5.4 percent on-year to Rs 37,225 crore.

The company's EBITDA margin reduced to 29 percent in Q4 from 39 percent in the March quarter of FY22, while the consolidated quarterly EBITDA came in at Rs 9,362 crore, up 32 percent quarter-on-quarter.

During the quarter under review, Vedanta's EBITDA growth was driven by higher volume across businesses, easing of input commodity inflation and higher output commodity prices.

First Published:May 22, 2023 12:27 PM IST