Glencore plc is an Anglo-Swiss multinational commodity trading and mining company with headquarters in Baar, Switzerland. Glencore's oil and gas headquarters are in London, England, as well as its primary listing being on the London Stock Exchange, and it is one of the largest components of the FTSE 100 by market capitalization.
The company's registered office is in Saint Helier, Jersey, a Crown Dependency of the United Kingdom. By some estimates, it is the world's largest commodity trader,[4] and among the world's largest companies.[5][6][7]
The company was formed in 1994 by a management buyout of Marc Rich + Co AG (itself founded in 1974). The company merged with Xstrata in 2013, increasing its size substantially.[8] Before that, the company was already one of the world's largest integrated producers and marketers of commodities.
Glencore was the largest company in Switzerland as well as the world's largest commodities trading company, with a 2010 global market share of 60% in internationally tradable zinc, 50% in internationally tradable copper, 9% in the internationally tradable grain market and 3% in the internationally tradable oil market.[9][10][11]
Glencore has a number of production facilities all around the world and supplied metals, minerals, crude oil, oil products, coal, natural gas and agricultural products to international customers in the automotive, power generation, steel production and food processing industries.[10] It was listed on the London Stock Exchange in May 2011 and was a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index.[12][13]
It had a secondary listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, but had withdrawn from January 2018.[14] Glencore's shares started trading on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange in November 2013.[15] The Qatar Investment Authority was its biggest shareholder as of 2016.[16] In March 2022, Qatar's Sovereign Wealth Fund announced it would sell a stake worth £812 million (US$1.1 billion) in Glencore Plc.[17]
History
1974–1994: formation and sale
The company was founded in 1974 as Marc Rich & Co. AG by commodity traders Marc Rich and Pincus Green. In 1993, a number of Marc Rich employees, led by Claude Dauphin, left to set up another trading company, Trafigura.[18][19] In 1994, after failing to take control of the zinc market and losing $172 million, Rich was forced[20][21] to sell his majority share in the company to Glencore International, the commodities trading and industrial company.[22]
Controversies
Colombia
In 2006, Swiss public television (TSR) reported that allegations of corruption and severe human rights violations were being raised against Glencore due to the alleged conduct of its Colombian Cerrejón mining subsidiary. Local union president Francisco Ramirez accused Cerrejón of forced expropriations and evacuations of entire villages to enable mine expansion, in complicity with Colombian authorities. A representative of the local Wayuu community also accused Colombian paramilitary and military units, including those charged with Cerrejón mining security, of forcibly driving Wayuu people off their land in what she described as a "massacre".[83]
In 2012, a BBC investigation uncovered sale documents showing the company had paid the associates of paramilitary killers in Colombia. In 2011, a Colombian court was told by former paramilitaries that they stole the land so they could sell it to Glencore's subsidiary Prodeco, to start an open-cast coal mine; the court accepted their evidence and concluded that coal was the motive for the massacre. Glencore disputed the court's ruling.[84][85]
Board of directors
As of July 2025:[140]
- Kalidas Madhavpeddi (non-executive chairman)
- Gary Nagle (CEO)
- Martin Gilbert (non-executive director)
- Liz Hewitt (non-executive director)
- Gill Marcus (non-executive director)
- Cynthia Carroll (non-executive director)
- John Wallington (non-executive director)
- María Margarita Zuleta (non-executive director)
Further reading
External links
References
- Annual Results 2025 Glencore, retrieved 18 February 2026^
- Glencore Marketscreener, retrieved 4 March 2023^
- Who we are Glencore, retrieved 27 January 2026^