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Rio Tinto has defended its growth prospects after walking away from merger talks with rival Glencore, pointing to strong copper and iron ore production.
The Anglo-Australian miner on Thursday said earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation adjusted for discontinued operations and impairment charges in the year to December rose 9 per cent to $25.4bn.
This was driven by an 11 per cent rise in copper production, record iron ore volumes and strong performance from its aluminium and lithium business, where adjusted ebitda jumped 29 per cent.
“We’re growing and we’re growing now,” said Rio’s chief executive Simon Trott, who led negotiations with Glencore before they collapsed two weeks ago. The deal would have created the world’s largest miner and boosted Rio’s exposure to copper.
“We went really hard under the hood,” Trott said of the “really constructive” talks, but the company could not “stand up a value case” for a merger. “That’s where it stands,” he said.
Net profit at $10bn was 14 per cent lower than in the year before and the lowest in five years, reflecting higher depreciation, tax and financing costs.
The company said it would pay out 60 per cent of its earnings in dividends, equivalent to a $6.5bn payout. The $4.02 a share dividend was flat year on year.
Rio shares fell 4 per cent at the open of London trade on Thursday after the results. Shares are up 40 per cent over the past 12 months.
The results came on the back of BHP’s first-half update on Tuesday, which showed the growing importance of copper to the world’s largest miners.
BHP derived more than half of its profit from the red metal for the first time in its history. In contrast, Rio still derived 56 per cent of its adjusted ebitda from iron ore in 2025.
Trott said 85 per cent of Rio’s exploration budget was now being directed towards copper projects, with the metal “front and centre” in its growth plans.
“With a high-quality pipeline, anchored in copper, we have clear visibility to extend this growth profile well into the next decade,” he said.
Trott, a Rio veteran who took over as chief executive in August, has pledged to “liberate” value within the company’s global base by disposing of smaller operations and bringing in new partners on infrastructure assets.
He has moved to refocus investment in projects started under his predecessor Jakob Stausholm, including a push into lithium, a metal used for electric vehicle batteries. The development of lithium has been placed under Rio’s large aluminium business.
A merger with Glencore would have boosted Rio’s copper position at a time when demand for the metal is growing from the AI data centre build-out.
But it would have also taken the group back into coal mining, from which it exited a decade ago. Trott on Thursday said the configuration of a merged company had not been set, but he did not intend to return Rio to coal mining.
Under Trott, the company has been active in smaller deals, including acquiring a Brazilian aluminium producer with Chinese partners last month.
On Thursday, it increased its stake in a lithium developer in Quebec to diversify its asset base at a time when the price of iron ore — the lifeblood of Australia’s mining sector — has come under pressure from lower Chinese demand.
