Glencore Decides to Keep Coal Business; Swings to Surprise Loss

By Christian Moess Laursen

Glencore said it will keep its coal unit following its $6.93-billion acquisition of Elk Valley Resources, shifting from its original plan to create a standalone coal business, as it unexpectedly reported a swing net loss for the first half of the year.

The world's largest mining company by revenue said Wednesday it plans to retain the unit it bought from Canadian miner Teck Resources last month following consultations with shareholders over the potential demerger.

"The expected cash-generative capacity of the coal and carbon steel materials business significantly enhances the quality of our portfolio, by commodity and geography, and broadens our ability to fund our strong portfolio of copper growth options as well as accelerate shareholder returns," Chair Kalidas Madhavpeddi said.

For the first half of the year, the commodity mining and trading giant swung to a net loss of $233 million from a $4.57 billion profit in the same period last year, missing analysts' expectations of a $1.72 billion profit, according to a Visible Alpha-polled consensus.

Write to Christian Moess Laursen at christian.moess@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

August 07, 2024 02:43 ET (06:43 GMT)

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