Mining and trading giant Glencore Plc said on Monday it would announce the proposed sale of some assets in Australia and Chile, as it sought a trading halt for its Hong Kong-listed shares, in the latest move to slash its debt pile.
Asset sales are part of a broad plan Glencore outlined last month to raise money to cut its $30 billion in net debt by about a third as it looks to weather a slump in commodity prices and revive its shares, which have dropped 57 per cent this year.
The company has said it is looking to sell a minority stake in its agricultural business, and last month sold a Brazilian nickel project for $8 million.
In Chile, the company owns a 44-percent stake in the Collahuasi mine, a two-thirds stake in a hydro-power project called Energia Austral, the Altonorte copper smelter and the Punitaqui copper mine and concentrator.
In Australia it owns an array of copper, coal, nickel, zinc and port assets as well as farms.
Glencore's Australian spokesman had no immediate comment on what assets were to be sold.
To shore up commodity markets, the company has cut production of copper, coal and zinc. Last Friday, zinc on the London Metal Exchange surged 10 per cent after Glencore said it would slash its output by a third.