Glencore Xstrata reports switch into profit

Mining giant Glencore Xstrata reported a sharp improvement in first-half performance on Wednesday, marking a big switch back into profit. The group, which came into being with a mega merger last year, said it had made a net profit of $1.72 billion during the first half of 2014, up from a $9.39-billion loss a year earlier. The deep loss during the first half of 2013 was largely due to massive write-downs after Swiss commodities group Glencore's merger with Switzerland-based mining company Xstrata. Cost-cutting since then had allowed the company to return to return to growth and to grow its cash holdings, it said. During the six-month period, Glencore Xstrata saw an eight-percent rise in its adjusted earnings before interest, taxes depreciation and amortisation (Ebitda) to $6.46 billion, which it largely put down to the Xstrata acquisition. ‘Glencore continued to make decisive progress in delivering on the potential created by the Xstrata acquisition over the first half of 2014,’ company chief executive Ivan Glasenberg said in the statement, according to AFP.