FTSE dips as Greece D-Day arrives February 6, 2012 The FTSE 100 slipped as the deadline for Greece to accept a new bailout or face a default which could trigger financial shockwaves across the globe arrived. Greece must tell the European Union by the end of today whether it accepts the stringent terms of a new bailout deal amid reports of divisions within the [...]
Glencore bid talks focus on premium February 5, 2012 MINING group Xstrata could lose out on its merger with commodities giant Glencore if the two companies ignore Xstrata shareholders’ demands to be offered a decent premium, investors warned last night. The deal, revealed last week, could see a combined company worth £50bn with revenues of over £110bn. Xstrata chief executive Mick Davis is tipped [...]
As crunch time nears there’s still a lot left to be decided February 5, 2012 SO as expected, Xstrata’s shareholders are kicking up a fuss over the premium Glencore is offering to pay for the company, barely a year after blocking a similar deal before Glencore’s record listing last May. With current talks rumoured to be moving towards a premium as low as a single digit figure, investors are unlikely [...]
FTSE flat as investors eye key US jobs data February 3, 2012 THE FTSE was flat in early trading as investors awaited key US jobs data due out later. US non-farm payrolls are forecast to rise by 150,000 after a 200,000 increase in December, while the unemployment rate was expected to remain static at 8.5 per cent. On the domestic data front the UK service industry picked [...]
GLENCORE SET FOR £50BN MEGA-DEAL February 2, 2012 MINING giants Xstrata and Glencore have revealed they are in talks over a merger that would create the world’s fifth largest commodities company, potentially worth over £50bn and with revenues of nearly $200bn. If the deal goes ahead, Glencore’s outspoken chief Ivan Glasenberg is set to cede the chief executive spot to his long-time rival [...]
It ain’t over until Ivan Glasenberg sings February 2, 2012 IT ain’t over till Ivan Glasenberg sings. Everyone knows the rationale for the deal: massive scale, a raft of cost-saving synergies, and a much-improved presence for Glencore in commodity markets. Indeed one of the main reasons the famously secretive Glencore went public was so it could bag Xstrata, whose other shareholders were cold on a [...]
HOW A COMBINED COMPANY WOULD LOOK February 2, 2012 EMPLOYEES 127,500 GLENCORE 57,500 XSTRATA 70,000 REVENUE $175.5BN GLENCORE $145BN* XSTRATA $30.5BN* OPERATING PROFIT $14.2BN GLENCORE $3.8BN* XSTRATA $10.4BN* GLENCORE The world’s largest commodities trading house also extracts, ships and refines raw materials in three groups – metals and minerals; energy products; and agricultural products. XSTRATA One of the world’s biggest mining groups, whose assets [...]
Glenstrata: a company to reckon with February 2, 2012 THE “merger of equals” of Glencore and Xstrata will create a corporate titan worth an estimated £50bn. The firms are headquartered within 3km of each other in Switzerland, and have been the subject of speculation over a possible tie-up for months. A merger would mean a combined workforce of 127,500 with revenue of $175.5bn (£110.9bn). [...]
Directors scrap for positions post-merger February 2, 2012 MERGING Glencore and Xstrata will create fierce competition for positions on the new board – and most of the potential directors already know each other. The two firms have a long history of sharing board members and are based just 3km apart in the twin towns of Zug and Baar, Switzerland. Mick Davis was a Glencore employee [...]
GOLDMAN’S OUTSPOKEN PRESS AIDE SIGNS OFF February 2, 2012 LUCAS VAN Praag was well-known for firing cerebral, elegantly worded scorn on anyone who crossed paths with Goldman Sachs. So the PR man’s exit from the bank, as confirmed yesterday, was similarly well-phrased. “C’est la vie,” emailed Goldman’s chief spokesman, the logical conclusion to the leak earlier this week that Jake Siewart, former aide to [...]