Glencore beats forecasts with £7.9bn earnings
INTEGRATED miner-trader Glencore Xstrata yesterday pleased investors and analysts with consensus-busting earnings, in its first full-year results since the completion of its merger.
Adjusted earnings of $13.1bn (£7.86bn) were flat but beat company-compiled estimates by seven per cent and Barclays forecasts by five per cent.
Core profit from Glencore’s trading arm rose 17 per cent, but the energy division lagged due to a challenging coal market.
Earnings from the mining division declined by four per cent because of a fall in commodity prices.
“As we look ahead to 2014, we continue to see healthy demand growth in all our key commodities, underpinned by the long term trend of urbanisation in emerging markets and parts of the developed world returning to trend growth,” said chief executive Ivan Glasenberg.
The South Africa-born boss confirmed that Hong Kong-listed Minmetals is the preferred bidder for its Peruvian copper mine Las Bambas, which it put on the block to comply with Chinese antitrust laws.
“We’ll sell it if we get the right price, but if we don’t we won’t sell it,” he told reporters.
Glencore completed its acquisition of miner Xstrata in May and said it has made cost savings of $2.4bn, beating guidance of $2bn last year.
Shares closed up 1.72 per cent.