City gives a warm welcome to Glencore Xstrata debut

Glencore Xstrata shares found favour with the City today on the newly formed mining empire’s first morning of trading as a single company.

The stock rose 1.3 per cent as investors were impressed with news that the $500 million (£321.5 million) of savings expected to be made by combining Glencore and Xstrata would be “comfortably met”.

The presentation to investors came after chief executive Ivan Glasenberg finally secured his long-held ambition to reunite the two companies — Xstrata was spun-out of wheat-to-nickel trader Glencore as a collection of coal assets more than a decade ago.

The stock debuted at 334p, valuing the company at just shy of £45 billion.

Most key management roles will be given to Glencore employees.