Mandelson sought Epstein’s help in hunt for lucrative roles at Glencore and BP
Peter Mandelson began seeking advice from the convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein on how to land “highly paid” senior roles with companies including BP and Glencore within days of Labour’s 2010 electoral defeat, emails show.A flurry of messages, sent in the weeks and months following the collapse of the New Labour project, reveal how Epstein mentored Mandelson as the former cabinet minister touted himself for lucrative jobs at global businesses.The emails.released by the US justice department among 3m pages of files on Epstein, lay bare the money-spinning opportunities available to departing ministers.In particular, they reveal Mandelson’s dogged pursuit of a job with the global mining firm Glencore, which became known as the “billionaire factory” thanks to the huge rewards on offer to senior staff from its $60bn stock market float in 2011.
Mandelson offered to help the company with “government attention and interference” as it prepared its listing,Glencore had faced scrutiny over its tax affairs and environmental record,The pair also discussed the possibility of Mandelson taking a lucrative job as a “fireman”, helping BP to manage the reputational and financial fallout of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill and environmental disaster,Mandelson’s post-parliamentary job hunt appears to have begun in earnest on 22 May 2010, 11 days after Labour lost power, the latest tranche of Epstein files suggest,Days after losing his role as a cabinet minister, Mandelson wrote to Epstein to say that he was due to meet Ivan Glasenberg, Glencore’s billionaire chief executive, later that day.
Mandelson highlighted Glasenberg’s 30% stake in another mining company, Xstrata, which he said “may be looking [for] a chairman”.Mandelson said that throwing his hat in the ring was “Nat[’s] idea”, understood to be a reference to his friend, the financier Nat Rothschild, who was an investor in the mining industry and knew Glasenberg.Sources close to Rothschild said he spoke to multiple people about the role and that they may have included Mandelson.The following month, Mandelson wrote to Epstein, saying: “No call from Glasenberg.Cross.
”The friends appear to have begun considering other options, including an opportunistic bid to take a senior role at BP, which was mired in crisis as oil from its doomed Deepwater Horizon rig gushed into the Gulf of Mexico,Epstein told Mandelson that he should offer to “be in charge of this crisis, in all aspects”,Mandelson responded: “Just to be clear […] I come in fireman role as highly paid adviser etc?”But emails between the pair indicate that their priority was Glencore, as it geared up for a stock market float that was expected to make tens of millions of pounds for its directors and investors,In June, as they discussed a separate job offer that the former Labour cabinet minister had received from Deutsche Bank, Epstein advised that “we can leverage against Glencore”,A day later, the disgraced financier added: “My suggestion is for you to tell Nat, so that he can tell Glencore,” apparently indicating a plan to get Rothschild to inform Glencore that Mandelson had other offers.
Then, in July, Mandelson pitched his services directly to Glasenberg in a lengthy cover letter that referenced the two men having met in London.Mandelson described himself as an “experienced pair of hands” with a lot to offer Glencore ahead of its stock market float, planned for 2011.“I am keen aged 56 to re-tooll myself to one major opportunity and not pursue a wide range of interests like many people in my position tend to do,” he wrote in one typo-ridden email.“But the more specific value I beliieve I can bring to Glencore is a knowledge of politics, government and regulatory trends which are ggoing to have more and more bearing on a company like Glencore.”“In the coming decade and beyond, business is goiing to have to face a lot more government attention and interference,” he added, highlighting the risk to businesses with “environmental and political impact”.
Glencore would go on to attract significant scrutiny with regard to its tax affairs, environmental impact and relationship with communities in the often remote parts of the world where it owned mines and trade commodities such as oil and metals.Glasenberg wrote back the same day to say he would be having a meeting with Glencore’s partners that week regarding the float and “you joining our company as the chairman”.On 10 April the following year, Epstein asked Mandelson for an update on progress with Glencore, prompting the response: “No word.”Days later, the former French foreign legionnaire Simon Murray was announced as chair.Sources familiar with the selection process indicated that, in fact, Mandelson had never been in with a chance of chairing Glencore during the flotation.
However, Mandelson did go on to secure a role for his own company, Global Counsel, providing Glencore with “strategic advice”.The former Labour peer, who once said he was “intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich”, followed his former boss Tony Blair by taking paid work for Glencore.Blair is thought to have earned more than £250,000 in 2012 for a cameo role, lasting just hours, in helping to negotiate a settlement between Glencore and the Qatari state to secure a £45bn merger with Xstrata.The Guardian has approached Mandelson for comment.Glencore and BP declined to comment.
Barclays reportedly cuts ties with lobbying firm co-founded by Peter Mandelson
Barclays has reportedly cut ties with the lobbying firm co-founded by Peter Mandelson, after intense scrutiny of the founders’ dealings with the late child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.Vodafone has also said it is reviewing its contract for public affairs services with Global Counsel, which Mandelson co-founded in 2010 after Labour lost the general election.Mandelson has tried to distance himself from the lobbying firm after the revelations of the extent of his relationship with Epstein sparked a major political scandal. Mandelson resigned from the Labour party on Sunday.The former minister was sacked as ambassador to the US in September after the emergence of emails that suggested he had a close relationship with Epstein, who died in prison in 2019 while awaiting trial over child sex-trafficking charges
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