Glencore ex-CEO Glasenberg buys shares for first time since 2015

Glencore ex-CEO Ivan Glasenberg. (Image courtesy of St. Gallen Symposium | Via YouTube)

Glencore Plc’s former chief executive officer and largest shareholder Ivan Glasenberg added to his stake for the first time in a decade after a share-price rout triggered by Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs.

Glasenberg’s shareholding in the miner and commodity trader rose to 1.219 billion shares — worth $3.7 billion at current prices — according to a regulatory filing. That represents an increase of about 7.4 million shares from the level detailed in Glencore’s annual report last month.

Disclosure was necessary because his stake rose above 10% of the outstanding stock. While Glasenberg isn’t obliged to file such reports whenever he buys or sells shares, the company does disclose his stake in its financial data — showing that he’d held the same amount of stock since 2015.

That year was one of the toughest in Glencore’s history, when a commodity downturn and a crisis of confidence forced it to issue $2.5 billion of new equity in the face of a slumping share price. At the time, Glasenberg paid about $210 million to buy stock in order to maintain his percentage shareholding.

Commodity markets tumbled after President Trump announced global tariffs last Wednesday. Glencore was one of the hardest-hit large mining companies, its shares closing Monday at the lowest in more than four years.

(By Jack Farchy)