Glencore backed Radiant World with warrants deal in late 2025

Bloomberg News | August 17, 2026 | 

Glencore is one of the world’s leading copper producers and marketers. (Image courtesy of Glencore.)

Glencore Plc last year acquired warrants that would have given it a minority ownership stake in Radiant World, the iron ore trader under pressure amid concerns it provided falsified documents to banks, according to people familiar with the matter.

The deal late last year came only a few months before Glencore moved to cut ties with Radiant World, the people said, asking not to be identified as the matter isn’t public. The London-listed commodity giant said earlier this month that it was doing no new business with Radiant World and was working to exit its remaining exposure. Bloomberg previously reported that several commodity traders had seen invoices or other documents that Radiant World had provided to its banks that were not valid.

Glencore holds warrants in Radiant World that it has the right to convert into less than 5% of the iron ore trader’s shares, one of the people said. That structure means that Glencore is not formally a shareholder because the warrants have not been exercised. However, Radiant World has told counterparties and lenders doing due diligence on it this year that Glencore had a small minority stake, several separate people familiar with the conversations said, asking not to be identified because the information is not public.

The move by Glencore underscores the unusually close relationship that the London-listed commodity giant has had with a little-known but fast-growing metals trader.

A spokesperson for Glencore declined to comment. A spokesperson for Radiant World had no comment. 

The US Justice Department and Commodity Futures Trading Commission have been investigating Radiant World’s deals, Bloomberg reported last week. Radiant World said at the time it hadn’t been contacted by the agencies nor had it been made aware of any investigation. The company has denied wrongdoing and said it “conducts its business to the highest commercial and legal standards.”

Glencore has been a major backer of Radiant World for a number of years and its support has helped the smaller company to secure credit lines from banks as it grew to become one of the world’s largest iron ore traders, according to people familiar with the two companies. 

It was not clear whether Glencore had paid any money for the warrants or whether it was given them in exchange for a reduction in debt owed by Radiant World to Glencore. Bloomberg reported last year that Glencore routinely held a large financial exposure to Radiant World in the hundreds of millions of dollars. 

Glencore Chief Executive Officer Gary Nagle said earlier this month that Glencore had taken a provision on its exposure to Radiant World. It was not clear whether Glencore had ascribed a value to the warrants, and whether the provision Nagle announced included an impairment of the value of the warrants.

Speaking after the company reported half-year results, Nagle refused to say when and why Glencore had decided to stop doing new business with the company. He would only say that Glencore’s exposure was not material, which the company later clarified meant that it was “well below” $500 million.

The exposure is in the low hundreds of millions of dollars, some of the people said.