Global commodities giant and Australia’s biggest thermal coal miner Glencore has finally managed to exit its small stake in the Chinese-controlled Yancoal Australia.
Glencore told Reuters it had sold the stake into the Australian market late Wednesday.
“Glencore can confirm it has sold its 6.4% shareholding in Yancoal Australia Limited,” Glencore said in a statement sent to Reuters.
It sold its stake in Yancoal in a block trade worth $422 million handled by two Sydney brokers.
The deal involved 84.5 million shares sold at $A5 each, a 12.1% discount to Yancoal’s closing price on Wednesday of $A5.69.
“We do not consider the shareholding to be a core asset for our business,” Glencore said in its statement.
The sale came almost a month after Glencore and other Yancoal shareholders rejected an offer by China’s Yankuang Energy (Yancoal’s 62% parent) to buy the remaining 37.7% of shares in Yancoal that it did not own at a hugely discounted cost of just $1.8 billion.
Glencore is said to have rejected that offer but maintained that it would be willing to sell its stake at the right price.
Yancoal owns coal mines in NSW Queensland, and Western Australia.
It revealed in its recent quarterly report that it has paid off all its debts and is now building cash reserves from selling thermal coal into export markets for well over $US300 a tonne.
But the recent rains and floods in and around the Hunter Valley and in parts of the central west have forced Yancoal to cut its projected 2022 export guidance.
