Glencore investor meeting sends shares to 10-month high
A presentation to professional investors has generated excitement in the City, with many believing the mining giant has further to go. Graeme Evans reports.
3rd December 2025 15:29
by Graeme Evans from interactive investor
Molten copper is prepared at a copper refinery owned by Glencore in Canada. Photo: ANDREJ IVANOV/AFP via Getty Images.
Glencore today fired up its shares by pledging to strike the “right balance” between its growth ambitions as a top five copper producer and returns to shareholders.
The contents of Glencore (LSE:GLEN)’s first capital markets day presentation in three years lifted shares to a 10-month high of 380p and extended their recovery from a post-tariffs low of 233p.
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The improvement came even though Glencore cut its 2026 production guidance to a midpoint of 840,000 tonnes. However, it said it had a clear pathway to exceed one million by the end of 2028.
The ultimate ambition is to produce 1.6 million tonnes by 2035, which would make Glencore one of the largest copper producers in the world. It has already taken steps towards this target following today’s decision to restart the Alumbrera copper/gold operation in Argentina.
While the copper business has the ability to self-fund its growth pipeline, Glencore said it would look at value-accretive partnerships or investor opportunities in order to reduce the financial and operational risk on certain projects.
It explained that this would help it deliver “the right balance of growth and returns to shareholders in the years ahead”.
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Returns to shareholders since 2021 have amounted to $25.3 billion (£19 billion) or 45% of the company’s current market capitalisation, split between $12.9 billion of base distributions, $3.5 billion of one-off cash distributions and $8.9 billion of buybacks.
More than half this sum was generated in 2022 and 2023 before 2024’s $7 billion acquisition of Elk Valley Resources coking coal operations prompted a focus on debt reduction.
As well as its ambitions in copper, Glencore also highlighted the potential of its seaborne steelmaking and energy coal assets and its LNG, power, gas and carbon marketing businesses.
Chief executive Gary Nagle said global demands in connection with artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure and the ongoing energy transition underpinned the favourable outlook for its commodities.
He added: “Copper has a critical role to play. When combined with the need for higher prices to stimulate the significant required investment in copper mine supply, our strategic portfolio of copper assets and projects are well positioned to help meet this supply challenge.”
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Morgan Stanley, which has a price target of 410p, said it viewed the revised 2026 copper guidance as credible and achievable and that it provided reassurance following a difficult 2025.
The bank said the update also contained significantly more visibility on Glencore’s copper growth pipeline, which includes a mix of greenfield and brownfield projects with aggregate investment potential of $23.4 billion.
It added: “This comes at a time of growing supply stress in the industry and a greater focus on future growth optionality. We do not attribute any value to the growth optionality in our base case, which constitutes another upside lever to Glencore’s fair value, in our view.”
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