City of Montague issued the following announcement on Oct 28.
Contenders for the biggest job in commodity trading, the head of Glencore, will be on parade this week. Outgoing CEO Ivan Glasenberg wanted his successor to look “like me,” and the main aspirants do.
Glasenberg announced last December his plan to retire in the next few years, firing the starting gun on a closely watched race. The three most likely choices are Gary Nagle, Kenny Ives and Nico Paraskevas. They’re barely known outside Glencore, however, and as the global metals industry descends on London for LME Week, miners, traders and investors will be jostling to find out more.
The passage of the chief executive officer’s baton at Glencore is more than another corporate transition. The firm is the world’s largest commodity trader, dominating transactions in most industrial metals, including copper, zinc and aluminum. The CEO of the Swiss-based, London-listed company has had an outsized role in shaping the world of commodity trading since Glencore was founded by Marc Rich in 1974.
Glasenberg, 62, in charge since 2002, hasn’t announced the candidates to succeed him. He has said, though, that there are “three to four guys” on the shortlist; that next CEO should be from a younger generation; and that “I hope he looks like me”. No women are in the running.
While three candidates top the list, nothing is final, according to a person familiar with the matter who declined to be identified discussing a confidential issue. Two of the executives have early career paths that broadly mirror Glasenberg’s, having trained in South Africa as accountants. Unlike the CEO’s generation of senior traders, many of whom became billionaires in the company’s 2011 flotation, none has a large equity stake in the company.
The succession will depend in part on how and when Glasenberg leaves. Glencore’s dealings in Nigeria, Venezuela and the Democratic Republic of Congo are under investigation in the U.S., and that has triggered speculation the CEO may step aside sooner than he has envisaged.
If that happened, one of the company’s older hands might take the reins—for example Peter Freyberg, recently elevated to oversee the company’s industrial operations, or Tony Hayward, the former BP CEO who is currently Glencore’s non-executive chairman.
Original source here.
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