Glencore’s $1billion shares boost

MINING giant Glencore is to buy back nearly £800m worth of shares in a bid to shore up confidence after a corruption investigation saw stock fall more than 12pc.

Boss Ivan Glasenberg, 61, lost about £343m from his holding on Tuesday as the US ordered the firm to surrender documents relating to Nigeria, Democratic Republic of Congo and Venezuela.

It wiped £4bn off the copper and coal producer’s value in its biggest share price fall in two years. Its shares had enjoyed an incredible 390pc rise since 2016. The buyback will take place in two stages, starting with £ 350m in early August. It sent shares up 2.1pc, or 6.65p, to 326.1p, pushing Glencore’s value to around £47bn.

Barclays said the firm’s response suggested it thought the price plunge was extreme.

The US investigation covers the period from 2007 to the present, but further details have not been disclosed. Glencore, which made sales of more than £150bn last year, said it was reviewing the demand. It comes as Glencore, which has around 146,000 employees and 150 mining, oil and agricultural sites, has just resolved several legal battles in DRC.

Last month it agreed to pay royalties from its Congo mines owed to Israeli billionaire Dan Gertler. It also recently settled a dispute with state miner Gecamines to save a copper and cobalt joint venture, effectively writing off a £4.2bn debt under a refinancing plan.

Glencore’s work in DRC is key to its future because the country is the world’s biggest supplier of cobalt, a key component in batteries and mobile phones.

Glasenberg has made electric cars a key part of the company’s strategy. He said last year: ‘This is a phenomenon... that definitely will have a major effect on nickel, cobalt and copper prices and the amount of production that the world is going to need.

‘With that scenario we are well positioned for the future.’

The London-listed firm made profits of £10.3bn last year, its strongest on record.