Glencore Rejected Offer for Rio Said to Have Been All Stock

Oct. 7 (Bloomberg) — Glencore Plc’s Chief Executive Officer Ivan Glasenberg made a verbal all-stock offer to Rio Tinto Group Chairman Jan Du Plessis in July to create the world’s largest miner, according to one person with knowledge of the matter.

Du Plessis took the informal bid, which carried no significant premium, to the Rio board of directors, who rejected the potential deal, the person said, asking not to be identified as the information is private.

Glencore’s proposal in July was unanimously rejected by the board, London-based Rio said today in a statement. Since being rebuffed, Glencore has reached out to Rio’s biggest investor, Aluminum Corp. of China, to gauge its interest in a potential deal in the next year, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg News.

Chinalco, as the Chinese state-owned company is known, controls about 9.8 percent of Rio. Talks with Glencore took place in recent weeks, the people said, asking not to be identified as the details are private.

Rio, the world’s second-biggest iron-ore exporter, climbed as much as 6.2 percent in London, the biggest intraday gain since July 2013. The stock traded at 3,160 pence at 2:03 p.m.

Peter Grauer, the chairman of Bloomberg LP, the parent of Bloomberg News, is a non-executive director of Glencore.

Spokesman for Rio and Glencore declined to comment.

To contact the reporters on this story: Dinesh Nair in London at [e-mail]; Jesse Riseborough in London at [e-mail] To contact the editors responsible for this story: Aaron Kirchfeld at [e-mail] Elizabeth Fournier