GLEN.L - Glencore plc
| Previous Close | 239.05 |
| Open | 242.00 |
| Bid | 242.05 x 0 |
| Ask | 242.20 x 0 |
| Day's Range | 239.05 - 245.30 |
| 52 Week Range | 188.23 - 2,334.50 |
| Volume | 11,266,126 |
| Avg. Volume | 41,338,263 |
| Market Cap | 32.049B |
| Beta (3Y Monthly) | 1.61 |
| PE Ratio (TTM) | 39.05 |
| EPS (TTM) | 6.20 |
| Earnings Date | Aug 7, 2019 |
| Forward Dividend & Yield | 0.16 (6.70%) |
| Ex-Dividend Date | 2019-09-05 |
| 1y Target Est | 4.95 |
- Bloomberg
Thin Margins Get Crop Giants Working Together as M&A Falters
(Bloomberg) -- For years the agriculture industry has been expecting a wave of consolidation that just hasn’t come. To battle razor-thin margins, the world’s top crop traders have come up with a new strategy: working together.Rivals Archer-Daniels-Midland Co. and Cargill Inc. now have a soybean joint venture in Egypt and recently swapped grain elevators in the U.S. Midwest. The two firms, along with Bunge Ltd., Louis Dreyfus Co., Glencore Plc and China’s Cofco International Ltd. are also teaming up in a blockchain technology project that will streamline shipping transactions and reduce costs.“The name of the game in traditional ag services and oilseeds is consolidation,” Ismael Roig, ADM’s president for Europe, Middle East and Africa, said Wednesday at the Global Grain conference in Geneva. “Consolidation is easier said than done, and there aren’t many large companies with which you can do a large consolidation, so what we’ve been working on is a lot of joint ventures and alliances.”The buzz about consolidation has waned since President Donald Trump’s trade wars hurt companies’ ability to forecast trends and therefore properly value assets. At the same time, Glencore’s agriculture unit, which had previously approached Bunge, has gone quiet amid a Department of Justice investigation into the parent company. Chris Mahoney, the chief executive officer that laid out Glencore’s agriculture ambitions, also retired.Agricultural commodity merchants have struggled to make money as years of bumper crops curbed the volatility traders need to thrive. At the same time, competition has increased as more companies have entered the market. That spurred speculation the industry would consolidate in megamergers.“One of the ways to do it is to try to consolidate through joint ventures, sharing best practices, so you are getting these minor areas where companies are working together,” said Jonathan Kingsman, author of ‘Out of the Shadows: The New Merchants of Grain,’ a newly launched book about agricultural commodity traders. “This will continue because the megamergers can’t happen at the moment.”ADM plans to focus on digesting recent acquisitions after buying the animal nutrition unit of France’s InVivo for about $1.8 billion, a deal that was completed earlier this year, Roig said. Juan Luciano, who leads the Chicago-based firm, said earlier this year that ADM’s five-year plan was low risk and excludes deals above $100 million or $200 million.“With the level of acquisitions that we had, I don’t think you see ADM being a very aggressive investor in the next few years,” Roig said, adding that the firm was focused on better utilizing its grain and oilseeds assets, driving efficiencies and growing organically.The agriculture industry is just now starting to follow the path of energy markets, where companies have established partnerships and joint ventures to help spread risk and reduce costs. Roig cited a study of more than 300 oil projects, of which 70% were joint ventures.While the mega mergers haven’t happened, there are still medium and small deals taking place. Crop trader Andersons Inc. this year completed a $300 million acquisition of Lansing Trade Group. Louis Dreyfus recently sold all its inland elevators in Canada to Parrish & Heimbecker.“These discussions are happening a lot, but it’s more about swapping than outright consolidation or big trades,” Pat Bowe, chief executive officer of Andersons, said in an interview in Chicago last week. “The blockbusters? On that front it’s kind of quiet, but I think swaps and individual asset trades will continue.”(Updates with comment in sixth paragraph.)To contact the reporter on this story: Isis Almeida in Chicago at ialmeida3@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Tina Davis at tinadavis@bloomberg.net, Reg Gale, Pratish NarayananFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
- Reuters
UPDATE 1-Glencore's Canadian unit to close "uneconomic" Brunswick Lead Smelter
British diversified miner Glencore Plc's Canadian unit said on Wednesday it would permanently close down the Brunswick Lead Smelter in New Brunswick that employs about 420 people. The unit said the smelter, which started in 1966, had been 'uneconomic' since the Brunswick mine closed six years ago. "We have thoroughly assessed all our options and come to the unavoidable conclusion that the smelter is simply not sustainable, regardless of the recent labour dispute," said Chris Eskdale, Canadian unit's head of zinc and lead assets.
- Financial Times
Martin Gilbert to take Revolut chair in January
Revolut has appointed City veteran Martin Gilbert as its inaugural chairman as the fast-growing digital bank bolsters its corporate governance ahead of a potential fundraising. The company said Mr Gilbert, the former co-chief executive of asset manager Standard Life Aberdeen, will take up the role on January 1. Until now, Revolut has operated without a chair.
- Reuters
Glencore strikes deal with Katanga over $5.8 billion rights issue
Katanga Mining Limited , a big Congolese copper and cobalt producer, said on Thursday it would raise around $7.6 billion Canadian dollars ($5.8 billion) via a rights issue as part of a debt-for-equity swap with parent Glencore. Katanga Mining will subsequently owe Glencore $1.5 billion, reducing its debt from $7.7 billion after experiencing setbacks including a fall in the price of cobalt from record levels of $95,000 per tonne in 2018 to around $35,000 now. Thursday's statement said Glencore, which owns approximately 86.3% of Katanga, had agreed to swap $5.8 billion in debt for equity, which will raise its stake further in the firm.
- Financial Times
Glencore backs $5.8bn cash call at DRC subsidiary
Glencore has agreed to back a refinancing of Katanga Mining, the Canadian-listed company that controls one of its most important assets. Katanga announced plans on Thursday to repay $5.8bn of debt owned to Glencore through an equity issue, which the Swiss-based miner and commodity trader has agreed to underwrite. After the offering is complete Katanga will be left with around $1.5bn of debt.
- Simply Wall St.
Glencore plc (LON:GLEN) Is Yielding 6.5% - But Is It A Buy?
Could Glencore plc (LON:GLEN) be an attractive dividend share to own for the long haul? Investors are often drawn to...
- Bloomberg
The Men Who Would Be King of Glencore Move Into the Spotlight
(Bloomberg) -- Contenders for the biggest job in commodity trading, the head of Glencore, will be on parade this week. Outgoing CEO Ivan Glasenberg wanted his successor to look “like me,” and the main aspirants do.Glasenberg announced last December his plan to retire in the next few years, firing the starting gun on a closely watched race. The three most likely choices are Gary Nagle, Kenny Ives and Nico Paraskevas. They’re barely known outside Glencore, however, and as the global metals industry descends on London for LME Week, miners, traders and investors will be jostling to find out more.The passage of the chief executive officer’s baton at Glencore is more than another corporate transition. The firm is the world’s largest commodity trader, dominating transactions in most industrial metals, including copper, zinc and aluminum. The CEO of the Swiss-based, London-listed company has had an outsized role in shaping the world of commodity trading since Glencore was founded by Marc Rich in 1974.Glasenberg, 62, in charge since 2002, hasn’t announced the candidates to succeed him. He has said, though, that there are “three to four guys” on the shortlist; that next CEO should be from a younger generation; and that “I hope he looks like me”. No women are in the running.While three candidates top the list, nothing is final, according to a person familiar with the matter who declined to be identified discussing a confidential issue. Two of the executives have early career paths that broadly mirror Glasenberg’s, having trained in South Africa as accountants. Unlike the CEO’s generation of senior traders, many of whom became billionaires in the company’s 2011 flotation, none has a large equity stake in the company.The succession will depend in part on how and when Glasenberg leaves. Glencore’s dealings in Nigeria, Venezuela and the Democratic Republic of Congo are under investigation in the U.S., and that has triggered speculation the CEO may step aside sooner than he has envisaged.If that happened, one of the company’s older hands might take the reins—for example Peter Freyberg, recently elevated to oversee the company’s industrial operations, or Tony Hayward, the former BP CEO who is currently Glencore’s non-executive chairman.Here are the three lead contenders:Gary NagleIf looking like Glasenberg is a job requirement, Nagle may be the man—some who know him call him a “mini-Ivan.” He’s South African like his boss, and similarly has degrees in commerce and accounting from the University of Witwatersrand. Also like Glasenberg, he built his career by rising through the ranks of Glencore’s coal department.Nagle, 44, is also the most asset-focused of the likely successors. That could be an advantage as mining accounts for an increasing share of Glencore’s income and the company moves away from its roots as a pure trader.Nagle joined Glencore in 2000 as an asset manager in the coal department, going on to become chief executive of its Colombian coal operation, Prodeco, in December 2007. Following the acquisition of Xstrata, he was moved to run the company’s South Africa-focused alloy assets, and last year was named head of coal assets.Kenny IvesIves, Glencore’s head of nickel since 2012, is probably the candidate best known outside the company’s headquarters in Baar, Switzerland. Gregarious and well liked in the metals industry, he has a traditional trader’s regard for personal connections. In an interview with a student at a Swiss university, he said: “When I got involved in this business back in the ‘90s, I remember my boss at the time saying to me, ‘Kenny, this business is about three things: relationships, relationships and relationships.’ It’s true.”Ives grew up in Brighton, southern England, where he paid his school fees “in cash out of an old Tesco carrier bag,” according to an interview with an alumni website. He joined Glencore in 1998, straight out of university, and for the first decade traded copper concentrates, spending a year in China.In the Glencore mold, he’s a sports enthusiast who captained his school soccer team and regularly leads morning or lunchtime runs.Ives’s time at Glencore hasn’t been without missteps. According to several current and former colleagues, he clashed with the then bosses of the copper, lead and zinc department, Telis Mistakidis and Daniel Mate, leading to his transfer to the grain division in 2008, from where he moved to nickel.Nico ParaskevasA Greek citizen who spent much of his career in Africa, Paraskevas is, like Glasenberg, a chartered accountant and a graduate of the University of Witwatersrand. He also spent time in the coal department, working for Glencore’s South African unit Shanduka from 2007 to 2009.Paraskevas moved to the Democratic Republic of Congo as finance and then commercial director of Glencore’s copper unit there, later becoming CFO of Katanga Mining, based in Johannesburg.Last year, Katanga was fined by the Ontario Securities Commission for misstating its accounts. Most of the conduct that was censured occurred after Paraskevas left as CFO in November 2012. The company did acknowledge, however, that it “failed to maintain adequate internal controls” from Jan. 1, 2012 until March 31, 2017, a period that overlapped slightly with Paraskevas’s tenure. He hasn’t been accused of wrongdoing.He led the disposal of Las Bambas, the Peruvian copper project that Glencore sold as part of a deal to get Chinese antitrust approval for the Xstrata acquisition. The timing of that deal was sweet for Glencore: It was consummated just before the copper market plunged. Still, Paraskevas remained relatively unknown to the wider world when he was elevated to run Glencore’s powerful copper trading division at the end of 2018.Colleagues say he’s calmer and a less dominating personality than his predecessor and fellow Greek national, Telis Mistakidis. He has overseen a less aggressive trading strategy by Glencore in the LME copper market. Paraskevas also has taken a more direct role in the trading of cobalt, a byproduct of Glencore’s Congolese copper mines that rapidly became one of the group’s highest-profile commodities.To contact the author of this story: Jack Farchy in London at jfarchy@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Paul Sillitoe at psillitoe@bloomberg.netFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
- Bloomberg
Glencore Trims Copper and Zinc Production Targets
(Bloomberg) -- Glencore Plc, the world’s biggest commodity trader, said it will produce slightly less copper and zinc this year than previously forecast.Glencore now expects to produce about 1.01 million tons of copper from its non-African business, compared with an earlier forecast of about 1.025 million tons. It will aim to mine 1.11 million tons of zinc, down 7%.Key InsightsCrucially, Glencore’s African copper business, where it is implementing a turnaround plan, is on pace to achieve its latest annual production goal. Hitting the target in African copper is an important first step toward convincing the market that it can make the assets profitable.Glencore cited minor operational updates across its portfolio for the reduced copper target. Zinc was lowered because of a delayed restart of a Peruvian mine, the shuttering of a small mine in the country and poor ground conditions at its Tishinsky mine in Kazakhstan.There was no update on its fabled trading business. Earlier this year, Glencore said the marketing business was tracking toward the middle of its full-year profit guidance range, after adjusting for $350 million of non-cash cobalt losses.Get MoreGlencore also trimmed its ferrochrome output target for the year, after weak prices prompted it to extend a maintenance period.The company maintained its cobalt forecast of 43,000 tons this year. The company plans to shut its Mutanda mine, the world’s biggest cobalt producer, at the end of this year.Statement hereKey figures here(Updates with reasons for production cuts, other details)To contact the reporter on this story: Thomas Biesheuvel in London at tbiesheuvel@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Lynn Thomasson at lthomasson@bloomberg.net, Liezel HillFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
- Reuters
CORRECTED-China leads the race to exploit deep sea minerals -U.N. body
China is likely to become the first country in the world to start mining seabed minerals if the international rules for exploitation are approved next year, the head of the International Seabed Authority (ISA) said. The ISA has already signed 30 contracts with governments, research institutions and commercial entities for exploration phase, with China holding the most, five contracts. The body, which was established to manage the seabed resources by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), is aiming to adopt seabed mineral exploitation rules by July 2020.
- Barrons.com
Your Heating Bill May Be About to Rise. Blame a New Shipping Rule.
Oceangoing freight ships will use cleaner fuel at the start of next year, leading to higher shipping costs that may force consumers to pay more for goods and to heat their homes.
- Bloomberg
Warren’s Pregnancy Discrimination Story Is No Outlandish Tale
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- A core biographical element of Elizabeth Warren’s stump speech — that in the 1970s she lost a job as a public school teacher when her pregnancy became apparent — came in for scrutiny this week after a conservative website, the Washington Free Beacon, went hunting through 1971 New Jersey school board records.Never mind that the records don’t contradict Warren’s story, or that it took place years before the national Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978, or that other teachers at her school told CBS that there was a “rule” that pregnant teachers had to leave once they started to show. The doubts raised about this story create a cloud of dishonesty around Warren, just as the Ukraine affair stirs up a murk of corruption around Joe Biden. That’s the way politics works in 2019: Mud doesn’t have to be real to stick to you.But the mudslinging at Warren’s early-career story of pregnancy discrimination is particularly pernicious, because it besmirches not only her, but also all working women. More than 80% of women become mothers, and most have jobs when they find out they’re pregnant. Nonmothers may be seen by employers as “potential mothers” — hence the how-are-we-still-discussing-this advice that a woman should remove her wedding ring before a job interview. The accusation that Warren lied will gain traction because many people believe a bigger lie — that claims of pregnancy discrimination and sexism are exaggerated.But to this day, significant bias against mothers and mothers-to-be persists. Writing in Harvard Business Review, Joan C. Williams and Amy Cuddy observe that although people generally understand that explicitly stating their biases at work is a bad idea, “many remain surprisingly open about their bias against one subset of employees: caregivers, particularly working mothers.”A study led by Shelley Correll at Cornell and published in 2007 found that mothers were expected to be more credentialed and committed than other employees, but offered less money: $11,000 less than childless women and $13,000 less than fathers. Mothers were half as likely to be hired as equally qualified nonmothers were. These findings align with decades of research finding that mothers and visibly pregnant women are seen as less competent than childless women, while fathers pay no such price. The gender pay gap widens so much with a first child — starting in the year before the birth — that many researchers have concluded it’s essentially a motherhood penalty.Pregnant women often find that discrimination begins as soon as they disclose their pregnancy, or, as in Warren’s case, as soon as they can no longer hide it. Erin Murphy’s boss at Glencore told her during a performance review that she was “one of the hardest working” people on the team, as well as “diligent, conscientious and determined.” After she got pregnant with her first child, he told her it would “definitely plateau” her career, something he seems to have personally ensured.For lower-earning women, announcing a pregnancy can lead not to a plateau, but a cliff. The Center for Work Life Law issued a report in 2011 — 40 years after Warren lost that job — finding that such women can still lose their jobs with shocking speed. A receptionist at a day spa was fired within hours of sharing the happy news; a telephone operator the following day; a restaurant worker within two weeks. According to complaints filed, the women’s managers justified these actions by saying the pregnant women were “too moody” or “less agile,” explaining that they were coming up on a busy season or protesting that they couldn’t afford to offer even an unpaid leave. One boss simply blurted, “That’s not going to work.”Bigger, better-lawyered companies tend to be savvier about how they go about this, stopping short of “firing,” but the results are the same. Rachel Mountis was an award-winning salesperson for Merck, and in 2009 was promoted for her stellar results. The next year, though, she became pregnant, and the company laid her off only weeks before her due date, calling it a downsizing. In 2017, pregnant Walmart warehouse employee Whitney Tomlinson said that after she asked for an unscheduled break and a bit of help with the heavy lifting, her supervisors pressured her to apply for unpaid leave, called her a “liability,” and then told her she couldn’t return to work until she gave birth. Try affording that on $15 an hour.Opposition researchers want to neutralize Elizabeth Warren’s personal story precisely because it’s a powerful one. But what makes it powerful isn’t that it’s unusual. It’s that it’s so infuriatingly common.To contact the author of this story: Sarah Green Carmichael at sgreencarmic@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Mary Duenwald at mduenwald@bloomberg.netThis column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.Sarah Green Carmichael is an editor with Bloomberg Opinion. She was previously managing editor of ideas and commentary at Barron’s, and an executive editor at Harvard Business Review, where she hosted the HBR Ideacast. For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
- Reuters
UPDATE 1-Canada's Fortune Minerals scales back mine on weak cobalt prices
Canada's Fortune Minerals Ltd said on Thursday it would shelve plans to upsize its early-stage cobalt mine in the country's far north while it continues to hunt for a strategic partner. The company's decision to scale back plans at its proposed Nico development in Canada's Northwest Territories comes after cobalt prices, hit by oversupply, have fallen from $47,000 per tonne in January to around $35,470. London, Ontario-based Fortune Minerals said current prices do not justify expanding the daily mill production rate to 6,000 tonnes from 4,650 tonnes at its proposed Nico project, which would also produce gold and bismuth.
- Moody's
Century Aluminum Company -- Moody's announces completion of a periodic review of ratings of Century Aluminum Company
Moody's Investors Service ("Moody's") has completed a periodic review of the ratings of Century Aluminum Company and other ratings that are associated with the same analytical unit. The review was conducted through a portfolio review in which Moody's reassessed the appropriateness of the ratings in the context of the relevant principal methodology(ies), recent developments, and a comparison of the financial and operating profile to similarly rated peers. This publication does not announce a credit rating action and is not an indication of whether or not a credit rating action is likely in the near future.
- Barrons.com
Copper Prices Set to Rise, Bernstein Predicts
The key copper/gold price ratio’s extreme lows will be short-lived, with copper prices set to rise, Bernstein has forecast.
- Reuters
Electric car boom to turbocharge battery metal producers - Moody's
Demand for metals used in battery electric vehicles could rise sixfold if electric cars reach 8% of road traffic by the mid-2020s, delivering huge dividends for producing countries like Democratic Republic of Congo, Moody's said on Tuesday. The credit ratings agency said a worldwide shift to electric vehicles would likely drive up demand for cobalt, of which DRC is the world's number one producer, as well as lithium, nickel and copper.
- Motley Fool
How to Invest in Copper Stocks
Digging into the copper mining industry can reveal some potential investment opportunities and better explain what it takes to make money from an ore that is growing in value.
- Reuters
UPDATE 3-Canada takes first formal step at WTO to challenge China's canola ban
Canada, locked in a major dispute with Beijing, is taking the first formal step at the World Trade Organization to challenge China's decision to block Canadian canola exports, Trade Minister Jim Carr said on Friday. China, angry at Canada's detention of a top Huawei Technologies Co Ltd executive last year on a U.S. arrest warrant, blocked all imports of canola seed in March on the grounds they contained pests.
- Reuters
Focus: Glencore's risk appetite dwindles, fueling focus on safer regions
The Swiss-based commodity trader took majority control last June of PolyMet Mining Corp, which is developing a mine in the Midwest state near the Canadian border estimated to hold a century's worth of copper and nickel, critical to the development of electric vehicles. It is the first time that Glencore has controlled a major mining project in the United States, where President Donald Trump has cut mining regulations and red tape in a bid to encourage domestic mining, a marked change from predecessor Barack Obama, who favored stricter oversight of the sector and slowed or halted several large mining projects. Glencore for years has operated in regions considered high-risk, high-reward, making its shares a draw for some investors who saw the more conservative investing policies of peers, including BHP Group PLC, as too tame.
