video transcript

It's one of the biggest acquisitions the commodities sector has ever seen. Glencore will pay 31 billion dollars for mining giant Xstrata. Shareholders dealt a blow to Xstrata's board, ushering through the takeover and vetoing a directors' pay plan. The company's chairman John Bond announced his resignation soon afterwards. The votes brought to an end years of tense merger talks between Xstrata and its largest shareholder, paving the way for a mining and trading powerhouse. Kevin Allison is Global Resources Columnist at Reuters Breakingviews. (SOUNDBITE) (English) GLOBAL RESOURCES COLUMNIST AT REUTERS BREAKINGVIEWS, KEVIN ALLISON, SAYING: "The size of this takeover shows that really huge mining M&A really can be done. That was an open question after financial crisis when a lot of proposed mergers between the world's biggest mining groups failed. However, just look at the difficulty both sides had getting this deal over the line. It shows it can be done, but it is very difficult. I don't see that much consolidation in the sector in the next 6-12 months ahead." Glencore Xstrata could be the 13th largest company in the FTSE 100, representing more than 2 percent of the blue-chip index. The deal still needs antitrust approval from European and Chinese regulators. But that's not considered a problem and many are already focusing on the next steps. The new company will have a vast spread of assets including mines, oil wells and farms - it's estimated combined worth is $67billion.