Glencore - debt demons

The dark days of 2015 may well be over, but Glencore still has a lot of work to do

Few companies in the extractive industries have attracted as much attention as Glencore and its towering debt. The Switzerland-based group's revenues from oil, coal and other commodities tumbled in the global market downturn. Investors even feared their shares would be wiped out if the company skipped its obligations on more than $30bn in borrowings of various kinds, much of it incurred in the merger with mining giant Xstrata. Even more dire, there were concerns that a failure might precipitate another global financial crisis. But their worst fears appear to be behind them, for now, after chief executive Ivan Glasenberg embarked on a programme of debt reduction. By October, Glencore had slas