To build or to buy?The tug-of-war between Glencore and TeckIt is mining’s dilemma in a nutshellIN FEBRUARY TECK RESOURCES finally announced its slow move into the future. The Canadian miner plans to spin off its relatively dirty steelmaking-coal operations. Under the plan, Teck would focus on mining copper and zinc, while continuing to get the majority of the severed coal company’s profits. Holders of Teck’s super-voting “class A” shares would retain control over the rump firm’s strategic moves for six years. After that its dual-shareholding structure would be scrapped.Glencore, a much bigger commodity firm based in Switzerland, has something much more radical in mind. It proposes a merger between it and Teck that would then create two giant versions of Teck’s proposed entities. The first would amalgamate Glencore’s and Teck’s metals and minerals businesses. It would be listed in London and have an enterprise value of perhaps $100bn. With copper mining expected to mak
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