Glencore Plc reported a steep drop in first-half profit and slashed returns to its shareholders after disappointing Chinese growth weighed on commodity prices, while the volatility that its traders thrive on has eased dramatically since last year.
Glencore reported first-half core earnings of $9.4 billion, half the record number it posted last year, although still one of its best-ever performances. The commodity trader and miner saw profits soar last year as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sent energy prices to records and dislocated global trade flows, but many of those pressures have now eased, while a sputtering economic recovery in top consumer China has hurt demand, knocking profitability across the mining sector.
Glencore said it would top up its dividend by $1 billion and buy back a further $1.2 billion of its own stock — also sharply lower than a year earlier, in part because the company says it’s holding back $2 billion in cash while it bids to buy Teck Resources Ltd.’s coal business.
The two companies spent much of this year in a bruising fight after Teck publicly and repeatedly rejected a takeover offer from Glencore, which said it wanted to create two new, more specialized companies from their combined coal and metals businesses respectively.
The latest twist in the saga came in June, when Glencore proposed buying Teck’s steelmaking coal business for about $8 billion as an alternative to its full takeover bid. The company is holding back $2 billion in cash in case it is successful in the bid, Glencore said on Tuesday.
