Ivan Glasenberg's Glencore has built a reputation for risk-taking and a culture of tapping into countries that other miners would think twice about entering. One source who has interacted with Glencore in business deals in South Africa said Glasenberg was known to be aggressive. He said Glasenberg's political links had given Glencore the confidence to believe that the miner could enter into any business deal it wanted to, and in most cases it had indeed got what it wanted. A classic demonstration of Glencore's risk-taking culture and political links was the Optimum coal mine case in South Africa. Glencore was forced to put Optimum under business rescue because of Eskom's refusal to increase the price of coal supplied to its power stations. The controversy around Optimum arose when then mineral resources minister Mosebenzi Zwane flew to Switzerland, where Glencore has its headquarters, to meet Glasenberg where he helped facilitate the sale of Optimum to the Gupta-owned Tegeta Resourc...
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