Glencore shares slide as profits miss and New York move ruled out
Published: 07:03 06 Aug 2025 EDT
Glencore PLC (LSE:GLEN) shares were among the biggest fallers on the FTSE 100, down almost 4%, after the commodities trading giant's half-year results disappointed and it confirmed that it does not plan to shift its main listing from London to New York.
Chief executive Gary Nagle committed to the group keeping its LSE listing, saying "London is where we are happy".
He told reporters on the earnings call that the board "don’t believe there is a value-accretive proposition to move exchanges right now".
Back in February, Nagle had said Glencore was studying whether moving to a New York listing would benefit its shares.
However, this morning he revealed that the move had been ruled out, with uncertainty about whether the company would be added to the S&P 500 index "a big factor in our calculation", along with "significant" costs associated with a listing move.
Shares in the group fell 13p to 288.05p.
Chris Beauchamp, chief market analyst at IG, says London's listing authorities will "breathe a sigh of relief" over the decision.
He adds that it was "a gloomy update overall from Glencore, which has suffered from the dire performance of coal prices, though recent improvement there and in cobalt provides hope that they can turn the ship around in the second half".
While the shelving plans for a New York listing may be good news for the London market, said Russ Mould at AJ Bell, "rather than being a ringing endorsement of the merits of a UK listing, it may instead reflect the fact the company is not exactly in the best place to appeal to a new investor base elsewhere".
He said deepening losses were partly due to lower commodity prices, as its move to stick to thermal coal misfires, while lower production hinted at operational issues.
"There will also be concern about the company’s mounting debt pile," said Mould.
"Glencore may well now have to channel more of its capital into improving the balance sheet rather than being able to reward shareholders as generously as it has in the past.
"The company is looking to take significant costs out of the business and expects a big improvement in second half production – it really needs to deliver these efficiencies and this improvement in output to get the market back on side."
