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By Clara Denina and Zandi Shabalala
LONDON, Aug 5 (Reuters) - Glencore will return $2.8
billion to shareholders in 2021 after soaring commodity prices
helped the mining and trading company to a record performance
for the first six months of the year, it said on Thursday.
The London-listed company's first-half adjusted earnings
before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA)
rose 79% to a record $8.7 billion, compared with $4.8 billion a
year earlier, beating the $8.4 billion expected by analysts
polled by Refinitiv.
Glencore joins rivals Rio Tinto and Anglo American
in declaring bonanza shareholder payouts after record
half-year profits powered by higher commodity prices.
Glencore declared a 2021 dividend of $2.8 billion, including
a special dividend of $0.04 cents per share, or $500 million to
be paid in September and will buy back $650 million in shares.
"Following COVID-19's severe global impacts in early 2020,
the subsequent economic recovery has seen prices of most of our
commodities surging to multi-year highs amid accelerating demand
and lingering supply constraints," said Glencore CEO Gary Nagle,
who took the helm of the company in July.
(Reporting by Clara Denina and Zandi Shabalala
Editing by David Goodman and Barbara Lewis)
