Glencore Board to Have Female Director by Year End, Hayward Says
May 20 (Bloomberg) — Glencore Xstrata Plc, the only FTSE-100 company without a woman on its board, intends to appoint a female director by the end of 2014, Chairman Tony Hayward said.
Adding a woman to the board is an “important priority,” Hayward said today at the mining and commodity trader’s annual general meeting in Zug, Switzerland.
Glencore’s is the only all-male board of any FTSE-100 company after fellow mine operator Antofagasta Plc hired Vivianne Blanlot in March. The Local Authority Pension Fund Forum, an association of 60 public sector funds with assets of 120 billion pounds ($202 billion), this month advised members to oppose Hayward’s re-election because of lack of progress in appointing a female board representative.
Glencore, run by billionaire Chief Executive Officer Ivan Glasenberg, has previously said the appointment of a woman “is a significant consideration” and the company is working to find the right candidates.
While the U.K. says it wants more women directors, a government-commissioned study led by former Standard Chartered Plc Chairman Mervyn Davies recommended a 25 percent goal by 2015 rather than quotas.
Capita Plc and Diageo Plc have the highest proportion of women on their boards, with just over 44 percent, while 36 companies on London’s benchmark FTSE-100 index have reached the 25 percent target, a report by Cranfield School of Management showed on March 26.
Male Directors
The level of women on FTSE-100 boards was 20.7 percent, up from 17.3 percent last year, according to the Cranfield report. In February last year there were seven companies with only male directors.
Former BP Plc CEO Hayward, 56, was appointed Glencore’s chairman this month, fending off challengers including former Vale SA CEO Roger Agnelli who ruled himself out of the running in April.
A member of Glencore’s board since its $10 billion initial public offering in April 2011, Hayward resigned from BP in October 2010 after its Gulf of Mexico oil spill, the worst offshore in U.S. history, which killed 11 workers.
Peter Grauer, the chairman of Bloomberg LP, the parent of Bloomberg News, is a non-executive director of Glencore Xstrata and chairman of the company’s nomination committee.
To contact the reporter on this story: Jesse Riseborough in London at jriseborough@bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: John Viljoen at jviljoen@bloomberg.net Alex Devine
