Glencore sets aside $1.5 bn for probes into bribery, market manipulation

Glencore expects to resolve probes into bribery and market manipulation in 2022

Glencore will set aside $1.5 billion for probes into bribery and market manipulation, which it expects to resolve in 2022, it said on Tuesday, as it announced record earnings from booming raw materials prices.

It also promised a $4-billion payout to its investors and said the trading division could benefit from further disruptions to commodity markets, including from tension between Russia and Ukraine.

The company, one of the world’s biggest miners and commodity traders, faces investigations in Brazil, Britain and the United States following corruption allegations relating to some of its operations in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria and Venezuela since 2018.

“We recognise there has been misconduct in this company historically. We've worked hard to correct that,” CEO Gary Nagle told reporters. Glencore also faces separate corruption and bribery investigations by Swiss and Dutch authorities.

In preliminary 2021 results, Glencore said it cut net debt to $6 billion at the end of 2021 from $15.8 billion a year earlier.

The firm has sold out of Russneft, capping two decades of investments which saw the Swiss commodities firm trading millions of barrels of the Russian group’s oil even as it witnessed some of Russia’s top corporate and political battles.

The sale, which has been years in the works since Glencore saw a top management reshuffle, was executed in December 2021 and will close in the first half of 2022 pending regulatory approvals.