Glencore chief executive Gary Nagle announced plans to launch a secondary share listing in Australia while insisting the commodities company remains committed to London. The company aims to complete the new stock market listing in October.
Glencore said the second listing would allow it to strengthen its profile in one of its most important operating jurisdictions. The move is also intended to widen its investor base and give it access to new pools of cash.
Gary Nagle sought to play down fears that the move was a precursor to Glencore exiting the London market. Such a departure would deal another blow to the stock market, which has suffered from several high-profile takeovers and overseas defections recently.
A similar panic occurred last year when Glencore considered moving its main listing to New York before eventually shelving the plans, saying the move would not deliver value for investors.
Rival digger BHP previously quit the UK market for Australia in 2022. However, Glencore insisted it remains committed to keeping its London listing.
When asked if the company was fully committed to keeping its London listing, Nagle replied: "Yes, we are."
Nagle said: "We investigated potentially moving a listing to New York. We went through a thorough analysis and we found that it made sense at that stage not to move to New York and stay in London."
He added: "As we sit today, the situation is [that London] is the optimal exchange for us to be listed on, for now, we're not looking to move from London."
Financial results and trading profits
Glencore reported that its earnings for the first half of the year surged 86 per cent to $10.1billion, while sales climbed 49 per cent to $174billion. Shares rose 4.1 per cent, or 22.7p, to 573.3p following the results.
Profits were boosted by the company's trading arm, which saw earnings more than double to $3.3billion from $1.4billion last year as the conflict in the Middle East drove volatility in energy markets. Higher commodity prices also drove profits at the firm's mining arm up 72 per cent to $6.5billion.
Mark Crouch, market analyst at eToro, said: "Escalating tensions in the Middle East have not only driven higher energy and metals prices but also created the kind of market volatility in which Glencore's trading business has historically excelled."
