Global Food Supplier to Profit Enormously While Food Prices Soar

Posted on May 10, 2011

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A vendor sells food in Batam, Indonesia.

Switzerland-based Glencore—one of the world’s largest suppliers of food and other commodities—could make as much as $11 billion by going public this year. The sale of its shares will add hundreds of people to the international roster of millionaires and billionaires while rising food prices continue to gouge the world’s poor. —ARK

Al-Jazeera

The rapid rise in prices for food, fuel and commodities has been disastrous for the world’s poor, including Indonesian market vendor Lia Romi. But it’s a bonanza for multinational trading firms such as Glencore.

While Romi has trouble feeding her family, Glencore - the world’s largest diversified commodities trader - is planning a US$11billion share sale, likely the largest market debut ever seen on the London Stock Exchange.

“The price for our daily food has at least doubled in the past two years,” Lia Romi told Al Jazeera through a translator. “Food costs 100 per cent of my family’s daily income [of about $3]. I have nothing saved and I owe [money] from my [market stall] business.”

While Romi, and millions like her, worry about feeding their families, the initial public offering from the commodity speculating giant will create at least four billionaires, dozens worth more than $100million and several hundred old fashioned millionaires. Chief Executive Ivan Glasenberg is set to make more than $9bn from the share sale. And speculating on food prices is an important part of his wealth.

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