A mining megadeal is back on the table
If there was any question about whether M&A animal spirits would continue into 2026, it’s been answered just over a week into the year.
The FT scooped that global miners Glencore and Rio Tinto have restarted talks over a potential megamerger to create a mining behemoth with an enterprise value of more than $260bn.
The two groups separately confirmed they were in “preliminary discussions” about a “possible combination of some or all of their businesses, which could include an all-share merger between Rio Tinto and Glencore”.
The statements also noted there was no certainty any transaction would be agreed.
Rio Tinto — the larger of the two companies with an enterprise value of $162bn — would potentially acquire Glencore under the deal currently envisaged, they said.
Mining companies are engaged in a global battle to secure access to copper resources. Last year two major players, Anglo American and Canada’s Teck Resources, agreed to merge, putting pressure on rivals to bulk up.
“It makes sense to create bigger companies,” Glencore’s chief executive Gary Nagle said in December. “Not just for the sake of size, but also to create material synergies, to create relevance, to attract talent, to attract capital.”
The Glencore-Rio Tinto talks will surely put pressure on Australian miner BHP, which made two failed approaches for Teck in recent years. It’s now (painfully) looking on as two of its competitors pursue a potential combination.
Rio Tinto and Glencore previously held deal talks in late 2024, but they ended over issues including valuation, the chief executive, and the future of Glencore’s coal mines.
There’s been at least one big change since then: Rio Tinto has appointed a new chief executive, Simon Trott, who took over in August. Maybe that’s enough to get things over the line.
Under the terms of the UK takeover code, Rio Tinto has until February 5 to either make an offer for Glencore, or state that it doesn’t intend to do so.
After a record number of megadeals were announced last year, an investment banker told DD in December that dealmaking in 2026 would come “out of the gate like a lion and leave like a lamb”. This may be your lion.