Tara Gold Resources (fka TRGD)

[Mamona]

Glencore and Marc Rich

Glencore International AG (management buy out of Marc Rich & Co AG) is a Swiss-based company, which is one of the world's largest suppliers of commodities and raw materials, and is also among the world's largest privately held companies.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glencore

Controversial involvements

According to an Australian Public Radio report, "Glencore's history reads like a spy novel".[3] The company was founded as Marc Rich & Co. AG in 1974 by billionaire commodity traderMarc Rich, who was charged with tax evasion and illegal business dealings with Iran in the U.S., but pardoned by President Bill Clinton in 2001.[4] In 1993 and 1994, Rich sold all of his majority share in Marc Rich & Co. AG back to the company.[5] The enterprise, renamed Glencore, is now owned and run by his inner-circle of associates, including former Glencore CEO Willy Strothotte and present CEO Ivan Glasenberg.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=a61f8N1S5cIs&refer=home

Ivan Glasenberg, a coal trader under Rich who has been chief executive officer of Glencore since 2002, gave his last published interview -- to an industry publication called Metal Bulletin -- in 2003. He refused to allow any of his employees to be interviewed for this article and denied access to his trading floors and industrial plants.

Close to the Vest

``Glencore is a company that plays its cards close to its chest,'' says Jonathan Pitkanen, an analyst at Aviva Plc's Morley Fund Management Ltd. unit in London, which oversees 55 billion pounds in fixed-income assets, including Glencore debt. ``The fact that they don't give out that much information is a negative.''

The veil, however, is now lifting because Glencore is eager to secure its sources of metal, coal and oil by buying commodity producers -- and it is issuing debt to do so. Glencore has raised $6.5 billion in the bond markets since 1996, when it first sold debt, forcing it to disclose financial details to investors and rating companies.

Moody's Investors Service and Standard & Poor's both give Glencore bonds and bank loans their lowest investment-grade rating, citing the risks it takes in Russia, the company's continuing penchant for secrecy and the allocation of most of its earnings to a company profit-sharing plan that is a drain on cash flow.