Chinese bank watchlisted $500mn Vedanta subsidiary loan, recovered it year later

In 2016, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) placed a Cyprus-based subsidiary of Anil Agarwal's Vedanta Resources on its internal watchlist due to a $500 million loan. The concerns included Vedanta's weak financial position, limited access to cash, and the borrower's reluctance to provide required compliance information.

Internal ICBC documents revealed that the bank's exposure was around $65 million, split among its London, Singapore, and Mumbai branches. However, the watchlist flag did not lead to a credit loss, and the bank fully recovered its exposure within a year, in 2017. ICBC stated that any exposure could have arisen through a secondary market transfer, and Vedanta had no current relationship with the bank.