November 18, 2025 – Over seven years, Vedanta Group incinerated more than $650m on Avanstrate Inc, a business it knew was dying when it bought the glass substrate manufacturer.
Marketed as a strategic entry into display manufacturing, the acquisition was in reality a distressed salvage operation dressed up as strategy. Avanstrate has generated persistent losses, consumed shareholder capital, and ultimately left Vedanta holding a structurally insolvent business with no commercial future.
The business was overseen throughout this period by Akarsh Hebbar, managing director of Avanstrate and Vedanta’s global head of display and semiconductor operations, a role he held by virtue of being group chairman Anil Agarwal’s son-in-law rather than any track record in the sector
This report traces the financial unraveling of Avanstrate, the misrepresentations that masked its decline, and the structural conflicts of interest that enabled it.