jaDEB, Ivan Glasenberg is a very clever man who learnt much of what he knows from Marc Rich and his crew. When you get on the phone with Ivan and his generals prepare to be shouted down into submission. Glencore makes their money from trading which basically means having legions of people on the ground reporting into their offices in Baar, Switzerland up to three times a day. They then take outsized positions in the financial markets by having a physical information edge or owning a physical squeeze. Google the famous Glencore Arcadia oil squeeze.
Before they bought Xstrata their mining assets were pretty poor and they just used them for trading leverage. Now that Ivan actually has to run a mining business and they are a public company, Glencore will simply not be able to perform as well as they did before i.e. under the white light of transparency. Expect to see them more active in places like the DRC where not so many analysts like to go. However, they should be able to perform just as well as any other major mining house, if not better. They are massively exposed to thermal coal and zinc and would like to be more into oil and iron ore.
