The Rio Tinto Ltd (ASX: RIO) share price is under the spotlight after announcing it has called off talks with Glencore.
Rio Tinto is one of the largest miners in the world, with a presence across numerous commodities including iron ore, copper, aluminium, bauxite and more. Glencore is another major mining business with a global presence.
Rio Tinto ends discussion with Glencore
The ASX share and the UK version of Rio Tinto together announced that Rio Tinto is no longer considering a possible merger or other business combination with Glencore as Rio Tinto decided that it could not reach an agreement that would deliver value for owners of Rio Tinto shares.
Rio Tinto said that it assessed the opportunity and came to this view through the disciplined lens set out at its capital markets day in December 2025, prioritising long-term value and delivering leading shareholder returns.
It’s understandable why the deal seemingly wasn’t able to go ahead. Glencore would want the highest price possible for its business if a merger/acquisition were to go ahead, while Rio Tinto would want to pay the lowest price possible. If the value tipped too far in one direction, it wouldn’t be acceptable to the other party. It always seemed like a difficult deal to get across the line.
Is the Rio Tinto share price a buy?
I can see why Rio Tinto management were attracted to combining with Glencore because of the significant copper assets that it owns.
The ASX mining share has built up its copper portfolio over the last few years and that is an industry that could continue to be appealing over the long-term because of global electrification, data centres and so on boosting demand, while supply could be hard to grow if high-quality, easy-to-access, large copper deposits become harder to find.
With the Rio Tinto share price up around 40% in the past six months, this doesn’t seem like the right time to invest. Resource prices, miner profits and share prices can be very cyclical, so I think it’s better to buy when conditions are weak rather than strong. I don’t know when that shift will happen, but it does tend to go in cycles.
There are other ASX dividend shares I’d focus on first.
