The sovereign wealth fund of Qatar is selling a stake worth $1.1 billion in Glencore, the FTSE 100 mining and commodities trader.
The Qatar fund is disposing of 159 million shares out of its stake of 1.22 billion shares. After the sale, Qatar will drop to the second largest holder in the Swiss-based company while its former chief executive, Ivan Glasenberg, becomes the largest investor, according to Bloomberg.
News of the planned sale came after the markets closed and the shares ended up 9p, or 1.8 per cent, at 511¼p, valuing the group at more than £67 billion.
Glencore is one of the world’s biggest commodities traders and miners, producing coal, copper, nickel, zinc and cobalt.
It has been operating under the cloud of bribery and corruption investigations since the US Department of Justice launched an investigation in 2018 into its compliance with corruption and money laundering rules in Nigeria, Venezuela and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
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In February, Glencore set aside $1.5 billion to cover the likely costs of resolving bribery and corruption investigations. The group said that it expected to resolve investigations in America, Britain and Brazil this year.
