Rio Tinto Group and Glencore Plc have held early stage talks about combining their businesses to create a behemoth to rival longstanding industry titan BHP Group.
The discussions took place as recently as late last year but are not currently active, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified discussing private information. Rio Tinto is the world’s second-biggest miner, with a market value of about $104 billion as trading got underway in London on Friday, while Glencore was valued at about $56 billion. BHP is worth about $126 billion.