Fresh from selling $6bn of assets to cut debt, Glencore joined forces with its largest shareholder, Qatar Investment Authority, in a €10.2bn purchase of a 19.5% stake in Russia’s largest oil producer, Rosneft. Glencore will contribute just €300m in equity towards the purchase price, ring-fencing its 0.54% stake in London-listed Rosneft, a potentially risky investment in the £46.5bn Russian oil producer, to protect the rest of its mining and commodity trading businesses. But the deal will give it access to additional oil to trade. South African-born Ivan Glasenberg, Glencore’s CE, had to take tough measures to cut debt after the merger with Xstrata, which gave it a host of chrome and coal mines, giving it a "mines-to-market" business and making it one of the world’s largest commodity companies. By the end of 2016, Glencore’s net debt should have fallen to between $16.5bn and $17.5bn after it notched up asset sales of $6.3bn, well ahead of its target of $1.2bn, according to a presenta...
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