Glencore and Xstrata complete merger Glencore and Xstrata on Thursday said their tie-up was completed, 450 days after the commodities trading house and the mining company first announced what initially was a merger of equals and later transformed into a takeover. The merger creates one of the world's largest natural resources groups, extending through more than 90 commodities from copper to barley and from oil to vanadium. The company employs approximately 190,000 people across 50 countries. Glencore Xstrata, which will trade for the first time on Friday in London, and next week in Hong Kong, will have a market capitalisation of roughly $65bn, becoming one of the 10 largest constituents of the blue-chip FTSE 100 stock index. The new company said the combination of Glencore and Xstrata would enable it to "capture value at every stage of the supply chain from sourcing raw materials deep underground to delivering products to an international customer base." The company added that its commodities were transformed into "products used in everyday life, such as mobile phones, bicycles, cutlery, plastics and electricity, to customers in industries ranging from automotive to food processing and power." The announcement on Thursday that the tie up had completed caps one year, two months and 25 days of intrigue, difficult negotiations involving some of the world's most influential investors, and lengthy antitrust reviews. Glencore and Xstrata originally announced on February 7, 2012, a few days after details of the plan leaked, that they had agreed to merge their businesses, in what would have been the largest tie-up and acquisition deal of the year. But the plan was renegotiated last year from a formal merger of equals into a pure takeover to win the support of the miner's shareholders, particularly Qatar's sovereign wealth fund, leading to delays to the original completion deadline. Ivan Glasenberg, Glencore chief executive, only won the backing of Qatar after it raised its original offer of 2.8 shares of Glencore for each of Xstrata to 3.05 shares. Since then, the deal has been delayed another five times, underscoring its complexity, since it required clearance from European, South African and Chinese regulators. Antitrust regulators in Europe and China forced Glencore to break supply contacts and sell some assets in order to win approval for the deal. The takeover is the fifth-largest in the history of the natural resources sector, ranking alongside the mega-mergers between Exxon and Mobil, BP and Amoco, Chevron and Texaco and Total and Elf that transformed the oil industry in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Mr Glasenberg, who initially said would be the number two of the company, will continue as chief executive. Sir John Bond, who was chairman of Xstrata, will become chairman of the new group. Mick Davis, chief executive of Xstrata, is to leave after a short period acting as a consultant for the new group.