EXTRA: Glencore returns cash to investors after aborted Rio Tinto deal

Glencore PLC shareholders will earn a huge paycheck after an attempted takeover of the commodity trading and mining company by Rio Tinto PLC fell apart early this month.

Releasing its 2025 financial year results that beat expectations, the Barr, Switzerland-based miner reported on Wednesday it will return $2 billion to its shareholders.

Glencore maintained the base distribution at 10 US cents each or $1.2 billion, and recommended a ‘top-up cash distribution’ of 7 cents, amounting to $800 million.

The mining giant, with a market capitalisation of £58.90 billion, repurchased $1 billion of shares under a share buyback programme announced in February 2025. In July 2025, it unveiled an additional share buyback of up to $1 billion. As at December 31, $842 million of shares had been repurchased and a further $48 million of shares were bought back last month.

A year earlier, Glencore returned $2.2 billion to shareholders, comprising a 10 cents distribution, together with a ‘top-up’ buyback of $1.0 billion.

Shares in Glencore were up 4.3% at 506.80 pence each in London on Wednesday afternoon, and rose 6.2% to R 109.86 in Johannesburg.

Glencore is contemplating its future as a standalone entity after a takeover offer from Rio Tinto fell through early this month. The deal would have created the world’s largest mining behemoth, valued at around $260 billion. Early last month, the two mining companies had announced talks over possible merger.

Early on Wednesday, Glencore reported it had swung to annual profit.

In 2025, net attributable income was $363 million in 2025, flipped from a loss $1.63 billion in 2024. Pretax income was $321 million, swung from $998 million.

In 2024, Glencore took an impairment charge of $2.26 billion, compared to just $868 million in 2025.

Revenue for the year was $247.54 billion, up 7.2% from $230.94 billion, unable to boost profitability. It was higher than an increase of 1.9% to $235.3 billion that was expected by analysts at First National Bank.

Adjusted Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation fell 5.9% to $13.51 billion from $14.36 billion.

‘The latest numbers from Glencore are not as strong as some of its peer group, but they’re also not as weak as the market expected,’ AJ Bell analyst Russ Mould said.

‘That’s enough to buoy the company as it emerges from its recent flirtation with Rio Tinto over a merger,’ Mould said.

‘Glencore’s second-half recovery may not rival Liverpool’s turnaround in Istanbul two decades ago, but the latter part of the year did represent a significant improvement - driven by strong metal prices and higher copper output,’ AJ Bell’s analyst said.

Like most of its peers, Glencore sees copper as the route to growth, thanks to the role the base metal is playing in AI data centres, renewable energy and electric vehicle infrastructure, Mould said.

‘Glencore benefits from its large commodities trading operation which means it can participate from mine to market and enjoy somewhat less volatile earnings than its counterparts,’ he said.

Glencore said on Wednesday 2025 was a year of ‘significant’ progress, marked by strong operational performance, continued portfolio optimisation and clear momentum for its copper-led growth strategy.

The copper price on average rose 44% to $12,452 a tonne in 2025 from $8,653 in 2024, driven by ‘physical trade dislocations’ and ‘regional arbitrage opportunities’, Glencore reported.

The mining company expects to produce over 1 million tonnes of copper annualised by the end of 2028, with Glencore now targeting 1.6 million output by 2035.

Copper output for the full year fell 11% to 851,600 tonnes in 2025 from 951,600 tonnes in 2024.

But Glencore is still saddled with coal assets.

Geopolitical uncertainty and softer sentiment weighed on the performance of the energy and steelmaking coal businesses, Glencore said.

The Newcastle benchmark coal price fell 11% to $108 per tonne on average from $122, while the average Richards Bay coal terminal export price dropped 17% to $86 a tonne from $104.

‘The factor holding it back in 2025 was exposure to falling coal prices,’ AJ Bell’s Mould said, adding: ‘The decision to retain its coal assets in 2024, when many of its peers were going the other way, attracted controversy for ESG reasons.’

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