By Rhiannon Hoyle

Rio Tinto's chief executive touted the miner's plans for growth, particularly in prized industrial metal copper, two weeks after talks with Glencore to create a global mining giant fell apart.

Speaking publicly for the first time since deal talks ended, Simon Trott said Rio Tinto looked "rigorously and clinically" at ways to combine with London-listed Glencore, but couldn't find a deal that would be valuable for shareholders.

He reassured investors that the world's second-largest miner by market value doesn't need acquisitions to grow, highlighting plans to lift group output at a compound annual growth rate of 3% to 2030. The miner already has a pipeline that can sustain growth well into next decade, anchored by copper, Trott said.

"We're growing, and we're growing now," Trott told reporters Thursday. The miner is expanding a copper mine in Mongolia, building a new iron-ore operation in Guinea and developing a lithium business largely acquired through last year's $6.7 billion takeover of Arcadium Lithium.

Trott signaled a continued desire to push in copper, saying that he has asked Rio Tinto's exploration team to put the metal "front and center" of their efforts. The company is now allocating 85% of its exploration budget to copper, he said.

His remarks followed the release of Rio Tinto's 2025 results, which featured largely little-changed underlying earnings and a flat full-year dividend.

The results, broadly in line with market expectations, showed copper is already becoming a bigger contributor to Rio Tinto's business, helping offset weaker iron-ore prices, long the company's main profit driver.

Copper was a key attraction in the Glencore talks, which ended on Feb. 5. Big miners globally are jostling for the world's best copper assets, betting on strong demand for a metal essential to data centers, electric vehicles and renewable energy.

Mining executives have re-embraced dealmaking as a way to potentially fast-track growth. Building new copper mines is becoming more difficult and costly, as deposits get deeper, lower grade and, in some places, face community opposition.

A tie-up of Rio Tinto and Glencore could have created the world's biggest mining company and copper producer, valued at more than $200 billion. Before talks ended, Morgan Stanley analyst Rahul Anand said such a combination could create "a mining supermajor" with greater relevance to policymakers, customers and capital providers.

"We went deep and had a hard look under the hood," Trott said of the Glencore talks in an interview. But Rio Tinto ultimately "formed the view that we couldn't stand up a value case," he said.

Talks were for "the full perimeter" of Glencore's business, including its coal operations, Trott said. Yet negotiations didn't advance to a stage where it was clear what the final configuration of a combined business would be, he added.

Under U.K. rules, Rio Tinto cannot pursue Glencore for at least six months, except in specific circumstances, such as the emergence of a rival suitor.

Before talks with Glencore became public, Trott laid out plans to cut costs and sell assets to simplify Rio Tinto's business. He said the miner continues to explore its options for asset sales but will do so methodically without setting deadlines.

Earlier this week, BHP Group agreed to sell its share of future silver production from the Antamina copper mine in Peru to Wheaton Precious Metals for $4.3 billion, calling it the most valuable silver-streaming deal on record. Like Rio Tinto, BHP is also seeking to unlock value from noncore assets.

Rio Tinto, which operates globally across commodities including silver and gold, will consider streaming arrangements as part of its options, Chief Financial Officer Peter Cunningham told reporters. "There's a whole array of options that we see," he said.

Rio Tinto reported underlying earnings--a key profitability measure--totaling $10.87 billion in 2025, down 0.9% year over year. Analysts expected underlying earnings of roughly $11.03 billion, according to a consensus estimate collated by Visible Alpha.

Net profit fell to $9.97 billion from $11.55 billion a year earlier.

Rio Tinto declared a full-year dividend of $4.02 a share, unchanged from 2024 and above the $3.97 Visible Alpha-compiled consensus estimate.

Write to Rhiannon Hoyle at rhiannon.hoyle@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

February 19, 2026 06:23 ET (11:23 GMT)

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