Glencore lines up potential chairman ahead of £37billion float

By Rob Davies for the Daily Mail
Updated: 16:30 EDT, 11 April 2011

A live less ordinary

Commodities giant Glencore is lining up a former French Legionnaire with a penchant for trekking in the Antarctic as a potential chairman, ahead of a £37bn float likely to be unveiled on Thursday.

Simon Murray, a renowned thrillseeker who has graced the boards of Vodafone and General Electric, said he was on a shortlist to chair the Switzerland-based company after its long-awaited listing.

The Hong Kong-based businessman said he was one of three candidates vying to become the figurehead of the firm, as it prepares to swap its much-valued secrecy for the greater financial firepower offered by a float.

‘This is very exciting, but you are talking to someone who has been chased by a leopard,’ said Murray, who fought with the French Foreign Legion in the Algerian War of Independence.

‘You are talking to someone who has been shot at with a machine gun and missed,’ he added.

Murray – who became the oldest man to reach the South Pole unsupported at the age of 63 – said it was ‘premature’ to assume he would be given tthe job, joking that he might be considered too young at the age of 71.

Former BP boss Tony Hayward is expected to be confirmed as senior independent director within days.

Glencore is preparing to list around £7.5bn worth of stock in London and Hong Kong, in a bid to widen its funding options dramatically.

Chief executive Ivan Glasenberg said this week that going public would give Glencore the ‘firepower’ to make acquisitions, conceding that one option would see it seek to raise its 34 per cent stake in miner Xstrata.