Glencore to Pay out $7 Billion in Dividends and Buybacks
Glencore will hand out over £5.8bn ($7bn) to shareholders in dividends and buybacks after the commodities giant posted another period of bumper revenues and profits powered by its coal and trading divisions.
Glencore announced it will make a record payout to shareholders of $5.1bn dividend, a top up payment of $500m and buyback of $1.5bn.
Revenues have soared 26 percent to $255.9bn, while core profits climbed 60 percent to a record $34.1bn, which included $18.6bn from the energy business that features coal production.
Overall, profit on metals and fossil fuels trading hit a record $6.4bn in 2022, up 73 per cent on the year before.
Glencore has been one of the biggest winners from the chaos in commodity markets caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The commodity giant mines battery metals copper, nickel, and cobalt – key minerals for the future green transition and ramp up of electric cars.
However, it has also reaped the benefits from its decision to keep mining coal while rivals pulled out – as the dirtiest fuel surged to a record last year according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).
Glencore is looking to deplete its coal mines in Colombia, Australia and South Africa producing 100m tonnes per year by the mid-2040s rather than spinning them off, as other miners have done.
Prices of thermal coal climbed to all-time highs last year, and remain historically elevated even as mild weather has eased demand.
Meanwhile, its sprawling trading business has benefited from sharp price swings and dislocations across the world.
It has also cut back net debt from $6bn at the end of 2021 to $75m by the end of the year.
Glencore’s chief executive Gary Nagle argued that commodity prices had benefitted from volatility, creating a high price environment for the company to benefit from.
He said: “The global pandemic, recovery from it and years of underinvestment, followed by conflict in Europe, exposed pre-existing vulnerabilities in energy security and supply chains, underpinning the generally high and volatile 2022 commodity price environment, which enabled the group to generate record profitability for the year.”
