Glencore plc (GLEN) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Glencore Webcast and Conference Call. [Operator Instructions]. I must advise you that this conference call is being recorded today, the 22nd of April 2021. I would now like to hand over to Tony Hayward, Chairman of Glencore, to start today's meeting. Please go ahead.

Good morning, good afternoon, good evening. Thank you for joining us today. I'm Tony Hayward, the Chairman of Glencore and joining me on this webcast is Ivan Glasenberg, our CEO; and the rest of your Board. Due to the ongoing restrictions relating to COVID we're unfortunately unable to hold an AGM with unrestricted access for shareholders. A shareholder participation is crucial. We encourage all shareholders to vote by proxy. An Annual General Meeting is the most important engagement event for shareholders as a whole. It's the opportunity for the Board to talk to and hear from all shareholders. We therefore organized this webcast to replicate those aspects of an AGM with voting taking place a week from today. I'm now going to talk briefly about COVID, safety climate and management succession. Ivan will then update us on the performance of the Group. After that, we'll open up the call to your questions. COVID remains an unprecedented challenge for the world. Last year, we moved quickly to adapt our business and protect and support our people and the communities in which we operate. This involves a range of measures across our businesses, depending on the incidence of COVID and the regulations and expectations of governments, employees and communities that host their operations. We continue to be vigilant in protecting our employees with comprehensive protocols in place across the business as the risk from COVID remains high. Regarding health and safety more widely, while some of our operations have particularly HSE challenges, we believe that all surmountable and are targeting continued improvement, not only to the crucial and humbling number of fatalities, but also across all measures of sustainability. On climate, In December, we announced our ambition to be a leader in enabling the decarbonization of the energy sector. Unique amongst our peers, we've announced the commitment to reduce our total carbon footprint that is scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions by 40% by 2035 on a 2019 baseline and an ambition to achieve a net-zero total emissions footprint by 2050 putting us on a trajectory aligned with the Paris Agreement. Ivan's retirement in 2 months' time will complete the succession plan for the business leadership team. to have your CEO and principal senior business leaders retire within a period of 2.5 years would normally be considered a material risk for business continuity. It is a testament to Ivan and his former partners that they've managed a seamless succession to the next generation of leaders, whom the Board and I are confident to have the abilities to lead the company into the future. The Board and I thank all those working at Glencore for their efforts and commitment to the ongoing success of your company, particularly at this most challenging time. Let me now hand over to Ivan.

Thank you, Tony. Good evening, morning, afternoon. I'll take you to the first slide we have in the presentation, which is the 2020 scorecard, how the company performed. As you'll note, we had a very healthy cash generation during 2020 and our adaptable business model adjusted quickly to the challenges of COVID-19. Most of our operations functioned extremely well during this period, and we ensured that we kept our staff safe at all our operations. As you'll note, we had $11.6 billion of EBITDA, which is flat year-on-year even under these difficult times, and it was helped with the stronger marketing and -- which will offset some of the weakness in some of the metals and the coal prices. Net income pre significant items was $2.5 billion. That's up 2% on the previous year, and CapEx was reduced a little down to $3.9 billion. Our equity free cash flow was $4.3 billion, which is 65% up on the previous year. Based on the strong cash flow and based on our dividend policy, we have proposed a $0.12 per share dividend, which is $1.6 billion, which will be distributed during this year. As I said earlier, we had a resilient industrial asset performance and the assets generated $7.8 billion EBITDA, which is 13% lower than the year before. Strong metals performance was outweighed by weaker coal prices. The metals generated $7.3 billion, which is up 31% on the previous year, whilst Energy generated $1 billion which is down 73% on the previous year, mainly affected by the coal price. Early COVID-19 impacts, followed by multiyear metal price highs for key commodities helped us. And as I said, energy was affected mainly with reduction in demand due to COVID in these importing countries. Our cost margin performance has been very good, as you will see on most of our commodities. We have reduced the cost of production and what stands out, copper at $0.94 per pound, which is $0.50 lower than the previous year. If you have a look at zinc, minus $0.07 per pound, post credits, which is $0.35 lower than the previous year. Marketing, we had an outstanding marketing result. As you will see, we generated EBIT $3.3 billion, which is $1 billion up on the previous year. That's an increase of 41%. There's been a strong performance from our major commodity trading units across the board. Energy was $1.8 billion, which is up [ $237 ] million from the previous year, driven by exceptional price movements, dislocations and logistics storage demand around the world. Metals was $1.7 billion, which is $578 million up on the previous year. Viterra Agriculture has performed well, and it generated $211 million as opposed to $58 million, the proportional share of earnings, which we bring into our books from Viterra and that a big increase to the previous year. Naturally, with this cash flow, the net debt, we have an extremely strong balance sheet, and our net debt is $15.8 billion successfully repositioned within the range which Steve has set for the company between $10 billion to $16 billion of net debt of the company. We are targeting below the middle of the range by the end of this year. Available committed liquidity is $10.3 billion, and bond maturities are capped at $3 billion in any given year. The spot illustrative free cash flow based on spot prices should generate around about $7.2 billion from EBITDA of 16 -- EBITDA of $16 billion at the time of our 2020 results. Naturally, with commodity prices having increased since February 2020, the generation of cash and EBITDA should increase from these levels. Turning over to sustainability performance. Unfortunately, we've had 8 fatalities at our operations around the world. This is naturally unacceptable to the Group, and Peter and his industrial leads are working very hard to ensure that we have zero fatalities across our industrial and overall assets of the companies. However, it should be noted, we do have a lot of employees around the group, and we employ 145,000 people. However, you will note that total recordable injury frequency rate is decreasing as is the last time injury frequency rates also decreasing and hopefully, this should lead to zero fatalities as we develop this part of our business. Glencore is uniquely positioned because we believe we have the right commodities in the environment of the goal of 2050 net-zero emissions will shape our future. As the world is decarbonizing energy demand and the forecast for fossil fuel demand under the rapid transition 1.5% pathway leads to far less fossil fuels being you utilize in the world today. And you'll see on the graph that we have there, less -- large reductions of oil, coal and gas utilization. However, as we reduce these fossil fuels, the world needs significant metal supply growth. And these graphs on the side, give you an idea, the vast amount of metals that are going to be needed to meet these zero-emissions targets. Just giving you an idea, if you have a look at copper, today, the world consumes 29.6 million tonnes of copper. By 2050, we are going -- where we will consume 60 million tonnes of copper that is twice today's annual requirement. Therefore, the world will have to increase copper production around about 1 million tonnes growth per year. If you look between 2010 and 2019, we have only increased 0.5 million tonnes per year. So a large amount of new mines will have to be developed in the world in order to meet the world's copper demand. The same applies to nickel, similar type figures, where we have to increase from 2.5 million tonnes of consumption today to 9.2 million tonnes by the year 2050, there 3.7x amount of today's annual consumption. Once again, we will have to increase nickel production, 225,000 tonnes per annum as opposed to historically between 2019 to -- 2010 to '19, we've only increased 111,000 tonnes. Looking further, an extremely important commodity in electric vehicle growth and battery supply, cobalt, we will have to go from 129,000 tonnes annually with a world consuming 507,000 tonnes annually, at 3.9x as much as we produce today. Therefore, we will have to increase annual supply of cobalt 13,000 tonnes per annum, whilst we've only been increasing 7,000 tonnes per annum between 2010 and '19. So we believe Glencore is well set up to supply these commodities that the world needs in this new net-zero emissions future. However, as you can see, looking at the next slide, the world is not ready to feed this demand that is required. And new pipeline projects are not readily available. The amount of investment, as you can see from the slide on the left has decreased considerably, and new pipeline projects are not readily available. Is limited inventory of shovel ready projects, lower head grades around the world and generally smaller scale, more difficult mining projects compared to what's been available in the past. We now have to go to the more difficult regions of the world to develop these projects. So we believe it's going to be very difficult to meet this demand. However, access to future resources in more challenging locations, we will have to go there. They're often lacking key infrastructure and building and maintaining a social license to operate is more difficult there. The industry will also have to increase its technology to lower mining costs and increase recoveries. And there, Glencore is already a leading supply of these technologies through Glencore Technology and XPS in Canada. Drifting of demand through technology and efficiency improvements will also have to take place to ensure that the world have -- has enough of these commodities available. Turning to the next slide. We Glencore are a leading supplier of these important metals for the future. If you look at copper, we produced 1.26 million tonnes of copper per year. The second, third biggest producer of copper in the world, and we have a large reserve life of 23 years and a massive resource base of 69 million tonnes. Cobalt, we are the largest producer of cobalt in the world, producing around about 27,000 tonnes and we have a reserve life of 50 years and a large resource base. Same applies for nickel, 110,000 tonnes, 26-year life and once again, an extremely large resource base. The other important commodity, zinc, we produced one 17 million tonnes, and we have 15-year life, a reserve life, but an enormous resource base over there. So we believe we have very good assets to feed this demand that's required in the world, and these are all low-cost producing assets. We support the transition by decarbonizing our emissions footprint. As Tony said earlier, we have a pathway to net-zero CO2 emissions by the year 2050 and a medium-term target of 40% reduction of CO2 emissions by year 2035. A large amount -- this includes Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions and we do not only talk about Scope 1 and 2, but Scope 3 emissions, the utilization of our product in our consumers' plants. So we are able to reduce scope1, 2 and 3 to achieve achieve net-zero by 2050. A large part of this is the depletion of our coal reserves across the board, and by 2050, we'll be producing very little coal in the Glencore portfolio. Turning to the next slide. Our approach is unique in the sector. Well, we talk about Scope 3 and not only Scope 1 and 2, whilst a lot of our peers are only focusing on Scope 1 and 2. And as you can see on the slide on the left, a large part of the CO2 emissions from our operations come from Scope 3, the consumption of our product and at our consumers. However, as we reduce our coal production portfolio, we reduced the Scope 3 emissions. And as you can see on the slide, we get to -- we reduced 40% by the year 2035 and to 100% by 2050. As opposed to our peers. We focus on Scope 3 and are able to reduce Scope 3, and that is the big part of our CO2 emissions. So we believe we're uniquely set for the future. We have the right strategy, achieving net-zero emissions by 2050 will be challenging, but it requires rapid and far-reaching transition with deep emissions reductions in all our sectors. We recognize our responsibility to support the achievement of the goals of the Paris agreement by decarbonizing our own emissions footprint. We have set ourselves the ambitious target of becoming net-zero total emissions of the company by 2050. So as I've said in most of this presentation, we believe we've got the right business model. We are a leading producer, marketer and recycler of transition commodities our high-quality portfolio is populated with large scale, long life and high-margin assets, and we believe we are a responsible stewardship of declining coal business over time as the industry decarbonizes, rather have the coal assets under our stewardship to reduce them and bring them down to zero rather than putting them in the hands of another producer. We are unique amongst our peers with Paris alignment and net-zero ambitions of good total emissions. And finally, as Tony said, the company is well set up for the future. The management team has been changed. The older generation, as I always said, we moved into the new generation of managers. The new generation is already performing exceptionally well, and I'm very proud, as Tony said, to ensure that we have a great -- we set up what part of my job was to ensure the new generation is hopefully going to be better than the last. So I believe Gary and the team that we put in place will take this company to a new great level. And as a shareholder of this company, I'm looking forward to performing extremely well going forward. Thank you.

Thanks very much, Ivan. I'd now like to hand the call over to the operator, who will manage the questions-and-answer process for shareholders. In the interest of time, if I can ask shareholders to participate by asking one question per shareholder. If we have time, we can open up for people to ask further questions later. So operator, please, if you can take over the process.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question for today is from Julia Kochetygova from Northern Trust Asset.

Ivan, and Tony. So I want to start with the statement that on behalf of Climate Action 100+ Investor Group, which we represent, Northern Trust and 2 other co-leads in this group, we welcome the developments that Glencore made in the recent years and particularly in the last months including your commitment to net-zero carbon by 2050 and your target to reduce your absolute emissions by 40% by 2035. We also know that you have more than twice exceeded your short-term target between 2016 and 2020 that assumed reduction of Scope 1 and 2 carbon intensity by 5%. So the question is, are you currently working on the new short-term target? Because this carbon reduction is not a linear process, it would be good to benchmark it on a short-term basis, not only on the medium term and long-term basis. So the question is, if you are expecting to disclose this target anytime soon and when?

Thank you very much, Julia. It's good to hear your voice again. I look forward to having the opportunity to meet in person again at some point. Again thank you very much for the constructive dialogue we've had with you and your colleagues. As Ivan and I have outlined and you've acknowledged, we've made a very significant commitment to reduce our total carbon footprint by 40% by 2035 and net -- to get to net-zero by 2050. And that does align us with the Paris 1.5-degree scenario. We believe the time frame we've set out is realistic for us to deliver the targets given the scale and complexity of technological and operational transformation that's required. And we look forward to continuing the dialogue with you as we move forward on an annual basis. So I look forward to a further update with you and your colleagues in the not-too-distant future. Thank you.

And our next question is from Frank -- apologies, Frank Wagemans from Achmea Investments.

First of all, many thanks for the presentation. Also for organizing this webcast. I have a question in relation to labor rights and I ask you questions on behalf of Achmea Investment Management, APG, Dutch pension funds for the retail sector, PGGM and Redevco. My question is specifically on Labor rights for sub-contractors and other current policies, implementation and evaluation on labor wide for subcontractors has that been on the agenda of the health and safety, environmental and communities committee in the last year? And if so, could you inform us how this has been discussed and what the outcomes of these discussions have been? And if not, could you commit to evaluate your policies and practices in regards to labor rights, subcontractors in the HSEC committee in the upcoming year? And I asked this question specifically because we see sector-wide that we see an attention on labor rights, but that's often quite focused on direct employees. And subcontracting is important and it's often of overlooked. So we will be very interested to hear if and how this Board committee has discussed this topic?

Great. Thanks very much, Frank. Thank you for your question. I think if you look at Glencore's code of conduct, it's very clear in setting out expectations of its suppliers, including its contractors to maintain safe, healthy and fair workplaces and to demonstrate zero tolerance for any form of human rights violation in relation to people. And our code of conduct also commits Glencore to treat its contractors fairly and to apply its safety processes to our entire workforce. So I start from saying, we don't treat our contractors any different from our workforce. And contractors have access to our internal reporting mechanisms in case they have concerns. And the safety performance, including with regard to contractors is regularly reviewed by the Board, Health Safety and Environmental committee. So I think it's fair to say that this is something that we are focused on and reviewing on an ongoing basis. And I think the important point is that in our minds, there's no difference between our contractors and our employees. Thanks very much, Frank.

Yes. Maybe one follow-up question because, well, first of all, that's very clear and helpful. But specifically, has it been discussed in the last year?

Yes, it has Yes. It is discussed on a regular basis, more than once a year.

Our next question is Jennifer Anderson.

Thank you, Ivan, and Tony, for your continued leadership, especially during COVID. And wishing Ivan the best for the future. My question is about climate and Glencore's critical metals, the copper, nickel, cobalt, zinc that are used to build renewable technologies. It seems most day if there is another government or large corporate or community committing to net-zero emissions. These metals are clearly critical to achieving that collective low-carbon objective. And as per Ivan's presentation, supplying them is a contribution Glencore can make to that objective. I'm curious whether the critical nature of these metals and this collective low-carbon objective could result in increased risk of government intervention to mining and supplying these critical metals that is not market-based. Essentially, the governments direct how much to mine and how to supply these metals even with the mining challenges outlined in Ivan's presentation. So my question is, do you see increased risk of government intervention that is not market-based for these metals? And if you do, is this a business as usual risk to manage or is it a potential future concern for the Glencore business? I'm interested in your view.

Thanks very much, Jennifer. It's great to hear from you I look forward to the day when we can meet in person. Again, it was always a great pleasure to see you at the AGM. I think in terms of direct government intervention, we don't see a risk of that. I think the days of widespread effectively nationalization are behind us. I don't think we see that as a risk. What we will clearly see, and it's a challenge always in the resource space is as commodity price rises, then governments seek to take more of the rent by way of increased taxes. And that is certainly a risk that we're seeing, and we will continue to see I'm certain over the next decade as the challenge of satisfying this increasing demand for these commodities almost inevitably leads to higher prices. But in terms of direct intervention, I don't think that's very likely.

Yes. I agree with Tony there. And you do see your ex-Prime Minister came out of the statement today where he wants to put a super profit tax on the iron-ore producers because of the higher $180 iron ore price today. So I think, yes, you could see more people trying that.

Our next question is from Valborg Lie from LGPS Central.

I am a co-lead for the Climate Action 100+ Group, together with Julia, who just spoke earlier, so I'd like to echo her sentiment that we very much welcome and appreciate the important steps that Glencore has taken recently the key milestones, their ambition and the medium-term targets that have been discussed just now and your overall transparency on how you will deliver against that ambition has increased and that is very much appreciated. I have a 2-part question on climate policy lobbying, which we have discussed with you many times. And I do want to caveat it before posing the questions that we do acknowledge the fact that industry associations, that Glencore is a number of often serve multiple purposes, and in many cases, have a diverse group of members. So we're cognizant of this multiple purpose, multi-member aspect, but it doesn't lessen our expectation about Glencore conducts positive and Paris aligned direct and indirect looping. And as you say in your last industry association review, there is a need for coordinated government policies on climate. So answer the question, what do you do within relevant trading association, that you're a member of, to make sure that they do not underline but rather promote Glencore's decarbonization ambition in support of Paris. And then linked to that in case is a misalignment, you have signaled in the latest industry review report that you will engage constructively, in these cases, but you may also consider resigning as a last resort. And there are perhaps also other measures to consider such as publicly distancing yourself from an association's position, collaboration with other industry association members to advocate change, measures such as withholding of additional funds or satisfying how funds should be spent and also resigning from committees or boards of trade associations. So would you consider such escalation techniques and engagement with industry associations going forward? And would you be willing to provide granular reporting on the same?

Thank you very much, Valborg. Good to hear from you again. And thank you also for your continued leadership of the Climate Action Group. As we discussed, I think, many times, we have a strong real view that remaining engaged with industry groups and helping them to evolve their position to the Paris aligned world is by far the best strategy. I can draw the analogy with the approach that you and your colleagues have taken in that regard. And that will continue to be our approach. We, of course, reserve the right to escalate if we think we're not getting traction with respect to our industry groups are positioning themselves, and we have done that in the past. But I think our principal bias is to remain engaged and to shift the way in which industry groups are thinking and aligning themselves with the Paris agreement. That's clearly something that this company believes in very strongly. And we think we can have an important role to play in getting others to align with this position. And of course, we will as you know, report on our efforts and our positions on an annual basis.

Our next question for today is from Robert Levenson from Old Mutual Investment.

From our side, we represent both our equity clients as well as our third-party stewardship clients in this question. And the first sort of comment, I would like to make regarding the AGM it's again, also a positive one in the sense that we do really appreciate the company taking a clear stance and a leadership position in the market around climate and putting forward a nonbinding advisory vote on climate policy. I think that's very innovative, and we appreciate that. My next question really -- comment goes around remuneration, and you would have noted that 2 of the parts influential proxy advisory firms have recommended a vote against a thing called remuneration, new remuneration policy this year for various reasons. My question is in 2 parts. The one question is given the recommendation, will the Board consider a retraction and is the Board able to retract the remuneration policy from this year's AGM agenda notice prior to the AGM? That's the first question. And the second question is, if not, and the policy is put to shareholder vote and the shareholders indicate a significant opposition to the remuneration policy will the Glencore decide to introduce performance criteria into the restricted share plan going forward.

Thank you very much, Robert, and thanks for your acknowledgment of our efforts with respect to climate. I think on remuneration, obviously, we're disappointed that ISS and Glass Lewis of coming out against it. We've spent an enormous amount of time over the last 6 months or so, engaging with shareholders, and we feel like we came up with an overall package, which was fair, balanced and equitable with respect to our new CEO and with respect to shareholders. And it clearly has some very market-leading components to it, which I think everyone has acknowledged the holding period, and particularly the fact that 40% of the annual comp is basically going to be shares that Gary will be required to hold for the tenure of his appointment and for 2 years beyond. So it has a lot of good things in it. We're obviously not going to withdraw it from the AGM. It will go to the AGM it will be interesting to see what the response is. Certainly, based on the conversations that I've held with majority of our major shareholders, they seem to be very supportive. Obviously, we will take a view when we have the vote. What I said to everyone is that this is a policy. We think that's actually a pretty good policy. And you should judge us by how we implement the policy. And you have the opportunity to do that on an annual basis. And if you don't like how we're implementing the policy, you can vote against it every year. So -- and I think that argument has resonated with a lot of people because the fundamental structure of the policy is deemed to be sensible and appropriate given the cyclical nature of our industry. So we will obviously take note of what happens a week from this day. And obviously, we will behave according to the vote, but I'm optimistic that we'll see significant support for the proposal we've made.

[Operator Instructions] Our next question is from [indiscernible] from Market Forces.

Tony and Ivan, the United Nations production GAAP report shows up between 2020 and 2030, global coal, oil and gas production. These declined annually by 11%, 4%, and 3%, respectively, to be consistent with that 1.5-degree pathway. Glencore only intends to reduce its coal production by 40% by 2035, which is around a decade later than what the production cap report finds is necessary. Glencore also seems to have no plans to manage [indiscernible] oil and gas production. And in fact, is looking to increase oil and gas production from assets in places like Chad and Equatorial Guinea. The company is in documents point to billions of dollars in expansionary fossil CapEx planned for the coming years? And of course, all of this runs the risk of exposing investors, the needless transitional risk as action to meet the climate goals and the Paris Agreement accelerates over the next few years? So my question is, will the Board commit to managing [indiscernible] oil, gas and coal producing assets. In a time frame that's consistent with the Paris Agreement goals and the CapEx on fossil fuel expansions and returning capital from existing assets to shareholders as these assets are wind up by.

Yes. Thank you, Adam. I'm not quite really sure where to begin on this question actually because I think we're doing exactly what you've suggested. We -- if I just deal with oil and gas to start with, we are exiting the upstream oil and gas business. We've been very clear about that. It's not part of our strategy, and we're exiting in terms of our coal business, as we've described throughout this call, we are overseeing the managed decline of our coal business to the extent that by 2035 it will be 40% smaller than it is today, and by the -- let me say, the middle of the 2040s, it will cease to exist that puts us on a clearly aligned pathway consistent with Paris and 1.5 degrees. And I think it's really important that people remember, this is a transition. It's not something that we're turning one source of energy off today and another one on tomorrow. So look, I'm not quite certain where you've got your view from. But our view is that we're exiting oil and gas, and we're managing the decline of our coal business frankly, in a pretty aggressive way. And the cash that is coming out of that business is being redeployed to build our base metal business. So we are taking the cash that's coming out of the coal business and reinvesting it into the base metals that the world needs over the coming decades.

There are no further questions at this time. I will now hand the call back to Tony.

Thank you very much. Well, as you've heard, that was the final question today. Many thanks for those of you who have participated in today's events, I hope very much that a year from now, we'll be able to do this in person. Before we close, it will not be loss on any of you that today is Ivan's final annual shareholder meeting as CEO prior to retiring at the end of June. Although I hope we're seeing him at future AGMs as a major shareholder. That is a formal invitation, Ivan. Come join us.

Thank you.

I've known Ivan been for over 15 years and worked closely with him as a director for the last 10. What he has achieved is unique. His vision created 2 of the world's largest mining companies, Glencore and Xstrata. With the support of his partners, I even understood the importance of creating a long-term asset base to underpin Glencore's leading marketing franchise. The IPO in 2011 provided the catalyst to reunite Glencore with Xstrata. The mining business that Glencore had founded and financed. Each step in the evolution of the business has been informed by the needs of the customer and reflected the changing dynamics of the global environment and commodity markets. And you've seen what the company has done in the last 6 to 9 months to do exactly that. It is a great demonstration of positioning the company for the future. Underpinning all of this is Ivan's simple mantra of value over volume, one that I know his successor will continue to follow. Ivan's work effort and dedication to the company and its employees has us inspired loyalty at Glencore that is rare in business. As Ivan hands over to Gary, he does so at a time of huge change. As the world moves to recover from the impacts of COVID-19, and at the same time, address the challenge of climate change. Our industry has a significant opportunity to contribute to the economic recovery by providing commodities essential to the transition to a low-carbon economy. Glencore and its portfolio of future facing commodities is uniquely positioned to meet the needs of today and the demands of tomorrow, the benchmark by which any great CEO can be judged is whether he or she leaves the business in a better position than when they started. Not only has Ivan achieved this with Glencore, but his vision and drive have left the lasting impact on the industry as a whole. With that, we'll now close the webcast. And as I said earlier, I very much hope we can welcome all of you to Zug a year from now. Thank you all very much.