Vedanta, the Indian mining group, is expecting a court-ordered resolution this month of its $2.56bn (£1.55bn) bid for Asarco, the bankrupt US copper miner, and on Thursday executives gave the bid a “50-50” chance of success.

A controversial August 31 ruling indicates Asarco may be handed to Grupo Mexico, the Mexican miner that is Vedanta’s rival in the year-long bidding war. But Anil Agarwal, Vedanta’s founder and controlling shareholder, was nonchalant about the possibility his company could lose this chance to jump to the US.