‘We’ll ride out storm’, says Glencore

GLENCORE insisted it was strong enough to survive the turmoil on global commodity markets after its shares fell by almost a third on Monday.

The FTSE 100 giant had to issue a statement saying it was ‘operationally and financially robust’ with a ‘positive cash flow, good liquidity and no solvency issues’.

The comments came as speculation mounted that chief executive Ivan Glasenberg will take the debtladen group off the stock market or seek a new investor.

Analysts at Investec warned this week that Glencore’s value could be ‘virtually eliminated’ if commodity prices kept falling.

There were also fears that the group could be the ‘new Lehman Brothers’, triggering a collapse among fellow commodity traders. Its shares lost more than £3.5bn of its market value on Monday.

But Glencore won support from analysts at Citi, Bernstein, UBS and Credit Suisse, who suggested the share price falls had gone too far and maintained ‘buy’ ratings. Citi analysts said: ‘In the event the equity market continues to express its unwillingness to value the business fairly, management should take the company private, where restructuring measures can be taken easily.’

Shares recovered nearly 17pc, or 11.63p, to 80.25p after an all-time low on Monday of 68.62p. But they are still down more than 70pc since the year began and trade at a fraction of the 2011 float price of 530p.

Fears remain about how Glasenberg will manage the near-£20bn debt pile. It plans to reduce this by nearly £7bn and cut borrowings.