Glencore sells Yancoal Australia stake in $293 million block trade

By Praveen Menon and Scott Murdoch

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Glencore has sold its minority stake in Yancoal Australia, the company confirmed on Wednesday, finally ending its time at the coal business that it's been trying to exit for years.

"Glencore can confirm it has sold its 6.4% shareholding in Yancoal Australia Limited," Glencore said in a statement sent to Reuters.

The global mining and trading giant sold its stake in Yancoal in a block trade worth A$422 million ($293 million), two sources with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters.

The deal involved 84.5 million shares sold at A$5 each, added the sources, who could not be named as the information had not yet been made public.

The block trade price was a 12.1% discount to Yancoal's closing price on Wednesday of $A5.69 each.

The deal was fully subscribed soon after the books opened, one of the sources said.

Glencore did not confirm the details of the deal. Yancoal Australia did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

"We do not consider the shareholding to be a core asset for our business," Glencore said in its statement.

The sale comes almost a month after Glencore and other Yancoal shareholders rejected an offer by China's Yankuang Energy to buy the remaining 37.7% of shares in Yancoal that it did not own at a discount, for $1.8 billion.

Glencore is said to have rejected that offer, but maintained that it would be willing to sell its stake at the right price.

Yancoal owns coal mines in New South Wales, Queensland and Western Australia, and counts China Cinda Asset Management among its top minority shareholders.

($1 = 1.4393 Australian dollars)

(Reporting by Praveen Menon in Sydney and Scott Murdoch in Hong Kong; editing by Jason Neely, Louise Heavens and David Evans)