Feb 5 (Reuters) – Rio Tinto said on Thursday that it was no longer in talks with Glencore about a takeover that would have created the world’s largest mining company as it could not reach an agreement that would deliver value to its shareholders.
Glencore shares fell as much as 10.8% to 456 pence. Rio Tinto’s London-listed shares were down 2.6% at 6,820 pence by 1535 GMT.
Attempts to combine the companies have repeatedly fallen short. Rio rejected a merger approach from Glencore in 2014, saying it was not in the best interests of shareholders, and another round of discussions in 2024 also fizzled out without a deal.
“The key terms of the potential offer were Rio Tinto retaining both the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer roles and delivering a proforma ownership of the combined company which, in our view, significantly undervalued Glencore’s underlying relative value contribution to the combined group,” Glencore said in a statement.
Glencore said it concluded that the proposed acquisition on these terms were not in the best interests of its shareholders.
The abandoned talks echo other ambitious mining deals that have faltered, including BHP’s $49 billion approach for Anglo American, which unravelled over concerns about the structure of the offer, even as the sector pushes to consolidate amid rising demand for metals.
(Reporting by Yamini Kalia, Raechel Thankam Job and Yadarisa Shabong in Bengaluru; Editing by Alan Barona and Anil D’Silva)
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