Like rival Vitol, Trafigura has seized the opportunity to get into oil storage as oil majors focus on production. That comment, by Matt Damons character Marc Whitacre in the 2009 corporate scandal film The Informant, described how U.S. agricultural firm Archer Daniels Midland Co. turned grain into gold. Glencore has long made its fortune by working on the fringes and in areas where few others dared. Switzerland-based Glencore, whose initial public offering (IPO) in May put trading houses in the spotlight, pays some traders yearly bonuses in the tens of millions. Mercuria was nearing the sale of an equity stake of 10 percent to 20 percent to Chinese sovereign wealth fund State Development & Investment Co., according to two people familiar with the matter. The company lists its trade in paper derivatives as larger still, or about 10 million barrels a day. [23][24], In 2019, Mercuria acquired bankrupt Aegean Marine Petroleum Network Inc and restructured the company to operate as Minerva Bunkering, a leading global physical supplier of marine fuels and a fully-owned subsidiary of Mercuria Energy Group Limited. We dont hear much about them yet, but in time we will.. They form an exclusive group, whose loosely regulated members are often based in such tax havens as Switzerland. Founded 25 years ago by Briton Richard Elman, the Hong Kong-based, Singapore-listed Noble Group buys and sells everything from Brazilian sugar to Australian coal. China is becoming more like a Glencore, said Hinde. Some transgressions make headlines. Co-founders Marco. Their friendship was galvanized a few years later working for grain trader Cargill Inc. and sharing an apartment while on a training course in Minneapolis. Noble quit its global liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) operations in 2010, a year it was censured in Nigeria for discrepancies in gasoline shipping lists. Compare Standard and Premium Digital here. U.S. and European regulators are cracking down on big banks and hedge funds that speculate in raw goods, but trading firms remain largely untouched. It has trading offices in China, palm plantations and chemical plants across Asia, and silos in Brazil. Putin finally broke his silence last month: I assure you, I know that a lot is being written about it, without any participation on my part. With Kochs easy access to tankers and pipelines, the strategy locked in profits of up to $10 a barrel with virtually no risk, traders said. Standard Digital includes access to a wealth of global news, analysis and expert opinion. See here for a complete list of exchanges and delays. Overall Arcadia profited by $50 million in derivatives markets as oil futures spreads collapsed, according to the suit. Or this: publicity-shy Vitols sales of $195 billion in 2010 were twice those at Apple Inc. As well as the 200 tankers it has at sea, Vitol owns storage tanks on five continents. It hasnt been determined whether Blythe Masters, who has led the JPMorgan unit since 2006 and orchestrated the buying spree, would join Mercuria, a senior executive at Mercuria said. In a settlement, Trafigura agreed to pay a $5 million fine, but wasnt charged with smuggling and denied wrongdoing. Sometimes you get it wrong, but you have to accept it, he said. newsletter, Energy Source. Mercuria specializes in trading and supplying physical commodities, investing in strategic assets, providing financing and logistics services and offering solutions to help clients meet their needs, including their net zero goals. The companys largest shareholder is now former coal trader and Chief Executive Ivan Glasenberg, an intense and charismatic South African who holds a stake of just under 16 percent, worth around 4.5 billion pounds at current prices. [3] A profile in the New Yorker magazine last year identified the brothers as behind-the-scenes operators who bankroll the U.S. It also has a substantial presence in Asias fuel oil market, the worlds largest. Argentinas tax office is investigating dozens of other agricultural exporters as well. From 2011 to 2013, Mercuria hired 570 people, including key executives from investment banks as it expanded beyond energy. Result: Chinas pigs are heavier than ever and Bunge has become a key supplier to one of the fastest growing economies in the world. News carefully selected news stories from around the industry. Cargill hopes to dominate new markets as well. Citing concerns over potential shortages and rising bread prices, Kiev had placed export quotas on cash crops and temporarily stopped granting export licenses for corn, wheat, barley and other grains. Dunand and Jaeggi first met studying economics at the University of Geneva in the late 1970s. [25][26][27][28], In 2020, Mercuria had its best year ever, earning $786 million with revenues in line with commodity prices to about $85 billion. The unit has generated $750 million in annual operating profit before compensation costs, according to people who have seen documents circulated in relation to the sale. Premium access for businesses and educational institutions. He is one of Russias most private tycoons. Fredriksens traders then hurriedly sold the physical crude at a loss, the CFTC lawsuit claims, ending expectations for tight supplies. Many of the biggest players in oil and metals trading trace their roots back to notorious trader Marc Rich, whose triumph in the 1960s and 70s was to create a spot market for oil, wresting business away from the majors. ADMs environmental record has also been questioned by the Environmental Protection Agency, resulting in fines and forced installation of pollution control measures. Electronic Invoice exchange and reconciliation for faster payments/settlements. You were always a little worried, taking the other side of their trades, said one European oil product trader, who declined to be identified. Thanks to a market condition known as contango -- a period when buyers pay more for future delivery than to receive their cargoes promptly -- they could sell futures and lock in profits of $10 a barrel or more. Trafigura said it entrusted the waste to a state-registered Ivorian company, Tommy, which dumped the material illegally at sites around Abidjan. "When we founded Mercuria 10 years ago . The firms far-ranging industrial interests also include chemicals, forestry, ethanol, carbon trading and ranching. I would love for them to be listed on the stock market, said Gertjan van der Geer, who manages an agriculture fund for Swiss bank Pictet. On its website Koch said it dismissed several employees of a French subsidiary upon learning of the improper and unauthorized payments. Just 10 years old, Mercurias ascent has outpaced its competitors. A rare news release announced that Jan-Willem van der Velden, who started as an international trader at the company in 1997, would take over as CEO from January this year. That complements his plan to set up a 200,000 hectares plantation in Indonesias Papua island, which could make him the new Asian sugar king, a title once hold by his uncle. Mercuria Creates a Nature-based Investment Platform While Vitol would not comment, industry talk has it that none of its senior employees, including CEO Ian Taylor who joined from Shell in 1985 or long-timer Bob Finch who heads Vitols coal business, holds more than 5 percent of the company. What matters is results, and you can see that in the way they trade.. That is as far as it goes -- yet time and again, the media wrongly jump to the conclusion that the judo club connection means that Mr Putin and I are close, then leap into conspiracy-theory mode.. Finding itself with a big client base, but short of the physical supplies it needed to meet demand, Noble built its own processing facilities. Its a message that could apply just as well to the Louis Dreyfus group. analyse how our Sites are used. Tornqvist says Gunvors goal is to become a truly global company. Companies like Hong Kong-based Noble and Singapores Olam and Hin Leong are not new, but they are spreading their wings as Chinas influence in commodities markets increases. The companys early forays into trading gas and oil left it with a black eye. WHO: Olam, founded 1989 by the Kewalram Chanrai Group, began trading cashews from Nigeria. In a move borrowed from the playbooks of western rivals, state-run oil firm PetroChina has set up a Houston oil trading desk and leased massive oil storage tanks in the Caribbean. Now in his mid-60s, the reclusive trader is busy with his latest empire-building effort: getting government approval to build the city-states fourth oil refinery. Of the six major metals warehousers only one, Dutch-based C.Steinweg, remains independent. People forget about it. But it was absolutely one of the greatest moves in the business.. Belgium-born Rich joined Philipp Brothers, subsequently Phibro, aged 20, leaving in 1974 with a fellow graduate of the Phibro mailroom, Pincus Pinky Green, to set up Marc Rich and Co AG in Switzerland. JPMorgans Canadian and U.S. operations will prove most valuable to Mercuria, according to Dawe. Scale is going to be more important than ever.. Theyve remained successful for decades, he said. The payout percentage of profits at the commodities houses can be double what Wall Street banks pay, says George Stein of New York headhunting firm Commodity Talent. Mabanaft sold 20 million tonnes of oil in 2010, up from 18 million tonnes in 2009. He is flanked in the top investor table by the youthful heads of Glencores major divisions. They include gas and power trading on both sides of the Atlantic, physical assets spanning 40 locations in North America, an oil-trading book with a supply and offtake contract with the largest refinery on the U.S. East Coast, 6 million barrels of storage leases in the Canadian oil sands, and Henry Bath & Sons Ltd., a 220-year-old metal-warehouse operator based in Liverpool, England. Arcadia often trades large volumes of oil from Nigeria and Yemen, where it boasts close relationships with state oil firms. offers FT membership to read for free. It also said its foreign units had ended sales to Iran years ago, and did not violate U.S. law by conducting business with Iran earlier. https://buff.ly . university Olympique Marseille is at a crossroads, she told supporters in a statement to announce the changes at the club. Among their campaigns is one to end the U.S. Environmental Protection Agencys mandate for regulating greenhouse gas emissions. For Gunvors rivals, too, favoritism is also an overly simple explanation of the companys success. Back in Hong Kong, he traded commodities with China in the 1970s and was the first to sell Chinas Daqing crude oil to the United States. [4] The group operates in 50 different countries. But there are people like David Bowie or Paul Weller who sense that the market is moving and change with it. One of the great things that Cargill did was develop the salt business to transport back up, eliminate the snow during the wintertime, and fill barges back up with back hauls, the wheat trader said. Mercurias corporate strategy and culture have reflected the professional paths of its founders, who spent the bulk of their early careers at investment banks. Vitol was founded in 1966; Glencore in 1974; Trafigura started in 1993; and Gunvor, the fifth-largest independent trader controlled by billionaires Torbjorn Tornqvist and Gennady Timchenko, was founded in 2000. They left Cargill in 1987 for Goldman Sachss J. Aron unit in London. Total Applied. [7] Prior to this, Mercuria was assumed control of J&S Group, which was named after the Polish businessmen Gregory Jankilevitsch and Wiaczeslaw Smolokowski. The firms now controlled by the western-backed rebels might still legally be linked to Libyas national oil corporation. Dunand is the more outgoing of the two founders and often serves as the firms public face, dealing with customers and developing corporate strategy. Still not entirely comfortable with his public profile, Glasenberg has described his shift into the glare of publicity as crossing the Rubicon. Independent traders including Mercuria are filling the void. Behind the $100 Billion Commodity Empire That Few Know And its not just the Europeans. Vitol says it is happy with its private status and has no IPO plans. To contact the reporters on this story: Andy Hoffman in Geneva at ahoffman31@bloomberg.net; Chanyaporn Chanjaroen in Singapore at cchanjaroen@bloomberg.net, To contact the editors responsible for this story: Will Kennedy at wkennedy3@bloomberg.net Amanda Jordan The discussions with SDIC were halted once Mercuria neared the JPMorgan business, one of the people said. The winner? "We expect demand to be a bit over 100 million barrels per day (bpd) at year end, which is a little bit short of pre-COVID levels . In April Noble appointed Li Rongrong, former chairman of the state-owned assets supervision and administration commission of China, as a non-executive director. But make no mistake, if you perform well at Koch, you are richly rewarded in salary terms, the person added. There is no rush, the company has been private for 150 years so there is no specific timing for changing the shareholding structure, one source close to the company said. With around $100 billion in sales, Koch Industries is a heavyweight among U.S. oil trading firms, and one of the most secretive U.S. corporations. The Kochs have denied funding the Tea Party, but their empires far-reaching tentacles in the political arena have spawned a nickname: the Kochtopus. Their combined stakes fluctuate at around 40%. Nobles shareholders include Chinas sovereign wealth fund, China Investment Corp., which bought an $850 million stake in 2009, and Korean Investment Corp., which has a minority stake. Mercuria Energy Trading has a total of 1001 employees. Mabanaft is aiming to further diversify its product portfolio by pursuing a controlled geographic growth strategy, is all communications manager Maren Mertens is able to offer on the subject. Lims Chinese connections have played a big part in the companys success. Yet it took Russias most influential politician almost a decade to publicly address one of the most serious allegations against him. Like Vitol, he says, Gunvor has no plans to follow Glencore into an IPO. Mercuria | LinkedIn 03.10.2014. Founded in 2004 by Swiss traders Marco Dunand and Daniel Jaeggi. [5], Mercuria was started in 2004 by Marco Dunand and Daniel Jaeggi, then executives at Phibro, the commodities trader sold by Citigroup to Occidental Petroleum in 2009. The company has spent six decades trying to keep it that way. U.S. refiner Tosco sued Arcadia and Glencore for market manipulation; the case was settled out of court. The China connection continues. Dunand went on to say the "urgency level" around the energy transition had increased with growing scientific knowledge, availability of data and political support, and Mercuria is confident 50% of its investments will be in the energy transition sphere within five years. In 2006, J+S was raided by the Polish authorities in connection with an investigation into oil trading in Poland. In his only media interview, with Reuters in 2006, Lim credited his success to investment in his tanker armada -- the secret weapon that helped him set up stealthy and profitable deals in the 1990s -- and his philosophy of perseverance. Mercuria Energy Group, Ltd - MarketsWiki, A Commonwealth of Market I never interfered with anything related to his business interests, I hope he will not stick his nose into my business either, Putin said. Headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, and named after Mercury, the god of merchants, Mercurias business straddles global energy markets. Its meteoric growth has been piloted by a couple of the sharpest minds in commodities. ENERGY TURNOVER: $75 billion 2011 company estimate (2010, $47 billion). Mercuria CEO Marco Dunand, President Daniel Jaeggi and global head of trading Magid Shenouda are the firm's biggest shareholders. Marco Dunand, Mercuria Energy Group Holding SA: Profile and Biography Last year he surprised the market when he trumped Chinas Bright Food in a $1.5 billion deal to buy Australias Sucrogen. But Cargill is anything but public. Gunvors oil dominance has waned in the past two years -- it is handling around a fifth of Russian seaborne oil exports, down from a third three years ago. Having said that, we have also been approached by potential investors -- sovereign funds and others -- who wish to make a private-equity type of investment in our company.. . The privately owned company recorded net income of $425m in the six months to June, up more than $100m from the same period last year, according to people briefed on unaudited figures revealed. Marco Dunand, our CEO, recently took part in a panel on energy security in a net-zero future, at the World Government Summit. Mercuria will dramatically reduce it, he said. In oil markets, Koch is a brutally efficient middleman. No sentimental attachments to any country or location. We havent seen this pace of population growth in our living memory, Verghese told a conference in Singapore late last year. Heres a look at the 16 companies, with aggregate revenues of $1.1 trillion, that trade energy, metals and agriculture. Noble is now seeking to spin off its agriculture business with a listing on the Singapore Exchange. Trading houses were able to do this because international sanctions on Syria do not ban the sale of fuel into the country, but they did not have to fight off much competition for that business. The talks with JPMorgan forced Mercuria to put another deal on hold. 2022 welcome statement Marco Dunand, Mercuria's CEO, introduces the 2022 CSR report. The godfather of oil trading, Marc Rich, taught one of his most talented apprentices Claude Dauphin almost every trick in the business. The sources said net income was $273m and Mercuria's net asset value climbed to $2.94bn from $2.6bn in 2013 People familiar with the results said Mercuria would have posted record pre-tax. In addition to proprietary trading curbs, the U.S. regulator voted on October 19 to impose position limits in oil and metals markets. WHO: Trafigura, founded 1993 by former Marc Rich traders Claude Dauphin, Eric de Turkheim and Graham Sharp. [18] The Miami, Florida-based MGM International Group is a developer of international projects to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The cost of running JPMorgans commodity business is too high because it comes with the expensive front-office staff and infrastructure an investment bank needs, said Oral Dawe, the former head of JPMorgans Asia-Pacific commodity business who now runs an investment-advisory company in Singapore. Thats the setting where we learned the trade, Dunand said in an interview with Swiss newspaper Neue Zuercher Zeitung published in January. In the early 2000s, the Brent crude oil stream -- used as a global price benchmark -- fell to 400,000 barrels per day from more than 1 million in the late 1980s. Wilmar is now the biggest soy player in China with a 20 percent market share, measured in processing capacity. We know how to close the gap (with Vitol and Glencore) and we are actively catching up, Tornqvist said. Koch moved quietly to lead a boom in U.S. offshore crude storage, buying millions of barrels at cheap spot prices, parking them in supertankers near its Gulf Coast pipelines, and simultaneously selling into futures markets. Noble has grown by acquiring troubled competitors. Despite not being on the registry, Bunge continues to export grains and agricultural products as usual, but it cannot cash in on certain tax benefits and it faces hurdles transporting goods within Argentina, which analysts say could hurt the companys bottom line. In a May interview with Reuters, Fredriksen refuted the charges and shot back that maybe they (U.S. regulators) are trying to get some revenge for the 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Vitol also discreetly supplied Libyas rebels with $1 billion in fuel, Reuters has learned -- supplies they desperately needed to advance on Tripoli. [10], Mercuria moves about 1.5million barrels per day (240,000m3/d), of crude and oil products and has upstream and downstream assets ranging from oil reserves in Argentina, Canada and the United States, to oil and products terminals in Europe and China, as well as substantial investment in the bio fuels plants in Germany and the Netherlands. They are buying and selling oil. I have known the citizen Timchenko for a very long time, since my work in St Petersburg, Putin told a group of Russian writers. Theres a great deal of trust between them.. . Together, they are worth over a trillion dollars in annual revenue and control more than half the world's freely traded commodities. If you have any issue with this post please contact us, News > Commodity Trading > Behind the $100 Billion Commodity Empire That Few Know, CTRM Center cookies Its website reveals little more than that it is the trading arm of privately owned oil company Marquard & Bahls. Top officials in many other large trading companies began their careers at Glencore. The warehouses seem to have an infinite capacity to absorb metal, but a very small capacity to release it, said Nick Madden of Novelis, the worlds top rolled aluminum producer. Mercuria, named for the Roman god of trade, is targeting a JPMorgan business that includes energy trading and storage assets in North America, where a boom in shale oil and natural gas has transformed the flow of commodities worldwide. Work Permit Application Outcome. The companys deal with Libyas rebels was a gamble. Marco Dunand and Daniel Jaeggi, both Swiss, have worked together closely for more than 25 years in a string of commodities companies, buying and selling crude and oil products in many of the hottest oil trading outfits: Cargill, Goldman Sachs J.Aron, Salomon Brothers Phibro and Sempra. Though it began as a pure metals and oil trader, Glencore has bought a wealth of industrial assets since the late 1980s which now stretches from South American farmland to copper mines in Zambia. With a personal fortune estimated by Forbes at $10.7 billion, the 67-year-old was Norways richest man until he abandoned his citizenship in 2006 to become a national of Cyprus, where tax rates are lower. But theres little room for maneuver: the majority stake she inherited is locked up in a trust her husband set up to last for 99 years. [17] In November 2010, Mercuria Energy bought MGM International Group from Morgan Stanley Capital Group Inc. and MGM International LLC. The JPMorgan unit employs about 600 and represents a range of assets assembled over decades by firms including Bear Stearns Cos. and RBS Sempra, which the bank bought during an acquisition binge beginning in 2008. Try full digital access and see why over 1 million readers subscribe to the FT, Purchase a Trial subscription for 1 for 4 weeks, You will be billed 65 per month after the trial ends, US says more than 20,000 Russian forces killed in Ukraine since December, The Big Dig: Germany reopens its mines in quest for mineral self-sufficiency, Chinas local governments stuck with bill for neighbourhood surveillance, Moderna co-founder calls on US politicians and judges to stop questioning science, Italy unveils measures to boost flexibility in labour market, JPMorgan to acquire First Republics deposits as US regulators step in, Charlie Munger: US banks are full of bad commercial property loans, Disney uses Ron DeSantiss own words against him in free speech lawsuit, Deutsche Bank plans to beef up investment bank advisory team, How Jamie Dimon swooped on the remains of First Republic, Totals chief tells investors European listing to blame for oil groups trading discount, US live news updates from May 1: JPMorgan to acquire First Republics deposits, Morgan Stanley to cut 3,000 jobs, The difference between First Republic and other recent bank failures, S&P criticised by pension funds over dual-class shares decision, China, America and why not all growth is equal, China could play a crucial role in ending the war in Ukraine, Labour has leverage to carry out private equity tax reform, Why Arsenals struggles show you shouldnt count out Donald Trump, The costs of entrenched high inflation cannot be ignored, Twill of the people: the workwear staple that never gets old, The best new sci-fi: action-packed plots and pure nerdstalgia.

National Dance Competition 2022, Permanent Gold Teeth Lafayette, Articles M