The boss of Glencore has insisted it remains ‘committed to London’ after announcing plans to launch a secondary listing of its shares on the Australian stock market.

The commodities giant said the second listing would allow it to ‘strengthen our profile in one of our most important operating jurisdictions’.

Glencore – which aims to complete the new listing in October – said the move would also widen its investor base and give it access to new pools of cash.

But chief executive Gary Nagle sought to play down fears that the move was a precursor to Glencore exiting the London market.

Such a departure would deal another blow to the beleaguered stock market, which has suffered from several high-profile takeovers and overseas defections recently.

A similar panic occurred last year when Glencore considered moving its main listing to New York before eventually shelving the plans, saying the move would not deliver value for investors. 

When asked if the company was fully committed to keeping its London listing, Nagle replied: ‘Yes, we are.

‘We investigated potentially moving a listing to New York. We went through a thorough analysis and we found that it made sense at that stage not to move to New York and stay in London.

‘As we sit today, the situation is [that London] is the optimal exchange for us to be listed on – for now, we’re not looking to move from London.’

But Glencore would not be the first London-listed miner to end up moving abroad, with rival digger BHP having previously quit the UK market for Australia in 2022.

Glencore yesterday reported that its earnings for the first half of the year had surged 86 per cent to $10.1billion, while sales climbed 49 per cent to $174billion.

Shares rose 4.1 per cent, or 22.7p, to 573.3p following the results.

Profits were boosted by the company’s trading arm, which saw earnings more than double to $3.3billion from $1.4billion last year as the conflict in the Middle East drove volatility in energy markets.

Higher commodity prices also drove profits at the firm’s mining arm up 72 per cent to $6.5billion.

‘Escalating tensions in the Middle East have not only driven higher energy and metals prices but also created the kind of market volatility in which Glencore’s trading business has historically excelled,’ said Mark Crouch, market analyst at eToro.