Retiring Glasenberg handing over Glencore reins to Gary Nagle

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Mining Weekly

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Glencore CEO Ivan Glasenberg announced on Friday that he would be handing over the reins of the global mining and marketing company in mid-2021 to top Glencore executive Gary Nagle, who has served the company for 20 years and is well-known in South Africa for his part in running Glencore’s ferroalloys business. Mining Weekly can report that the reins are being handed over at a time when the company’s level of performance is at a high. Glasenberg said that 65 was the right age for him to hand over to a new generation and younger leader and he would be working with Nagle during the first half of 2021 at a time when, as CFO Steve Kalmin reported, the company was in peak financial fitness. Also using Friday’s presentation to spell out the pathway Glencore would be following to reduce emissions and decline its coal business – while investing in metals that help to mitigate against climate change – Glasenberg said the company’s diversified portfolio positioned Glencore uniquely to gradually move out of coal while ascending into the quickly emerging low-carbon economy. Nagle, 45, started with Glasenberg in the coal division 21 years ago, and has had considerable global experience. On joining the company, Nagle initially ran its coal assets in Colombia, before moving to South Africa, where he ran Glencore's ferroalloys division and then he moved to Australia, where he has control of the coal division. Nagle, who will be relocating from Australia to Switzerland, pledged in a media release to continue to deliver value to shareholders, while operating safely and responsibly. Glencore chairperson Tony Hayward said the board had been working with Glasenberg over the past two years to oversee a seamless transition. The transition now coincides with debt being reduced to extremely low levels, substantial free cash being generated and the company being well positioned to pay large dividends, or other methods of payments to shareholders, going foreward. “We’re going into the third generation of the leaders of the company and all the leaders who have taken over the various asses within the company, at both the trading and the operating sides of the business, have come from internal appointments. “We’ve always ensured that there’s a great succession in the company and that we have leaders ready to take over the business. I’ve always said that I wish to leave the company by the age of 65. I believe that’s the right time that I should be leaving a company of this size and nature and the work ethic that we have in the company, and It’s time to hand over to the new generation, and a younger leader. “In the succession process, it could have been three to four parties who could easily have taken over the position of this new generation, the 45-year-old generation, who should be running this company and taking it forward. We’ve decided that over the next six months, I’ll be working closely with Gary Nagle, who will be taking over from me,” Glasenberg told Investor Day 2020, attended by Mining Weekly. Nagle, who has commerce and accounting degrees from Wits University, qualified as a chartered accountant in South Africa in 1999. He served on the board of the now defunct Lonmin plc from 2013 to 2015 and represented Glencore on the minerals councils of Colombia and Australia, where he is currently Sydney-based and serving as global head of Glencore’s coal industrial business.