You were always a little worried, taking the other side of their trades, said one European oil product trader, who declined to be identified. On its website Koch said it dismissed several employees of a French subsidiary upon learning of the improper and unauthorized payments. In metals, stock in warehouses can be tied up for years as loan collateral, allowing the same traders who dominate the metals market to control a huge chunk of world supply -- an apparent conflict of interest that has drawn criticism from the UK parliament. Journalists in 50+ countries follow the constant flow of money made and lost in oil & gas while Theres a great deal of trust between them.. Mercuria | LinkedIn Change the plan you will roll onto at any time during your trial by visiting the Settings & Account section. Inside the lake office, as it is known, sits the chairman of Cargill Inc., one of the largest privately held companies in the world. "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 . Founded in 1818 in Amsterdam, the company is the worlds No.1 oilseed processor. We also believe that nature is going to have to play its role in the transition, because when the world talks about net zero, it doesn't mean absolute zero. personalising content and ads, providing social media features and to Verghese, who Forbes says is worth $190 million, believes he can go it alone and aims to quadruple the companys value by 2015. As the company expanded, it has hired traders and investment professionals from Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Louis Dreyfus Group[16] and Electrabel in London. News carefully selected news stories from around the industry. [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. Despite a relative lack of regulatory oversight, such reach does attract scrutiny. Vitols goal was to supply the refined products and then try to pick up upstream assets in Libya, said a western diplomatic source. 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. Cargill and Louis Dreyfus are the large missing players in the commodity trading space.. Decatur, Illinois-based ADM is one of the worlds biggest commodities traders. 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. A few traders seized the chance to buy what amounted to almost all the available supply. Its early dealings with the Libyan rebels may offer the chance of a foothold in Libyas oil and gas territory. JPMorgans Canadian and U.S. operations will prove most valuable to Mercuria, according to Dawe. Hin Leong made its name in the hard-fought Asia fuel oil and distillates market over 20 years ago, and is arguably the largest independent distillates trader in Asia, regularly mounting successful trading plays in the Singapore market. Welcome - Mercuria Corporate Social Responsibility The CEO sometimes flies to speaking engagements with no entourage. Glencores flotation has sparked speculation about a possible Vitol initial public offering and what it would be worth. In May, Argentina kicked Bunge off the countrys exporters register after the government alleged it had evaded $300 million in taxes, an accusation the company denies. 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. U.S. refiner Tosco sued Arcadia and Glencore for market manipulation; the case was settled out of court. Its a message that could apply just as well to the Louis Dreyfus group. By Andy Hoffman and Chanyaporn Chanjaroen. [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. It has trading offices in China, palm plantations and chemical plants across Asia, and silos in Brazil. The very public power struggle was all the more remarkable because the company normally keeps everything, from its precise earnings to the exact age of its main shareholder and chairwoman, a secret. In less than a decade, Marco Dunand and Daniel Jaeggi have turned a 10-person company supplying oil to a pair of Polish refineries into the world's fourth-largest commodity trader with revenue. A row over oil export control could jeopardize its role in selling the nations crude. A fiercely libertarian ideology and ultra-competitive engineering prowess live on at Koch Industries spartan headquarters in Wichita, Kansas, a former Koch executive told Reuters. WHO: Louis Dreyfus, founded 1851 by Leopold Louis-Dreyfus, WHERE: Paris WHAT: Cotton, rice, grains, orange juice. Trafigura paid a $200 million settlement and the countrys prosecutor declared that there was no evidence of any illegality or misconduct by any Trafigura company or staff. In the two years since Margarita Louis-Dreyfus inherited control of the worlds top cotton and rice trader following the death of her husband Robert, the woman the French press call the tsarina has been at the center of one of the most intriguing struggles in corporate Europe. There is no ideal solution. Mercuria Energy Group Ltd is a Cypriot-domiciled French[1] multinational commodity trading company active in a wide spectrum of global energy markets including crude oil and refined petroleum products, natural gas (including LNG), power, biodiesel, base metals[2] and agricultural products. Noble is now seeking to spin off its agriculture business with a listing on the Singapore Exchange. See Marco Dunand's compensation, career history, education, & memberships. 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 most analysts think it needs fresh capital to grow, or to buy out minority family shareholders who will have the option to sell their stakes in 2012. Any changes made can be done at any time and will become effective at the end of the trial period, allowing you to retain full access for 4 weeks, even if you downgrade or cancel. They were early dealers in a range of financial derivatives that are now commonplace and brought a level of sophistication to their trading books that most of their competitors could often only envy. Still not entirely comfortable with his public profile, Glasenberg has described his shift into the glare of publicity as crossing the Rubicon. It puts them in a tremendous position.. It has coal mines in Kalimantan in Indonesia, oilfields in Argentina and Canada plus oil trading in Singapore, Chicago, Houston and across Europe. To achieve this, it would be necessary to recruit the (Ukrainian) farmers to take an active role. Olympique Marseille is at a crossroads, she told supporters in a statement to announce the changes at the club. And if you dont, youre out of there fast., WHO: ADM, formerly Archer Daniels Midland, founded 1902 by John Daniels and George Archer, Corn goes in one end and profit comes out the other.. Lawyers said doing business with the rebels still required great care. His partners seized control of the firm in 1994, renaming it Glencore. It is true that I, together with three other businessmen, sponsored a judo club where Mr Putin became honorary president, he wrote. During your trial you will have complete digital access to FT.com with everything in both of our Standard Digital and Premium Digital packages. [6] The company focused mostly on oil trading until 2007. Introduction - Mercuria Corporate Social Responsibility organisation Trafigura took legal action to keep a report about the Ivory Coast incident out of newspapers, but details were eventually made public. A lysine price-fixing scandal in 1993 tarred its name after three top executives were indicted and imprisoned. analyse how our Sites are used. Tornqvist, a former BP trader and keen yachtsman, says he doesnt share the vision of Mark Rich, the father of contemporary trading, that political links are the most prized asset in trading. Shenouda, who joined Mercuria in 2014, had for years been seen as the likely successor to co-founders Marco Dunand and Daniel Jaeggi. Premium Digital includes access to our premier business column, Lex, as well as 15 curated newsletters covering key business themes with original, in-depth reporting. On the world oil markets the name Vitol is as familiar as Exxon is at the petrol pump. In London, Trafigura reached a pre-trial settlement to put an end to a class-action suit from some 31,000 residents. 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. [21], In January 2016, Mercuria announced that ChemChina had bought a 12% stake in the company. ENERGY TURNOVER: $75 billion 2011 company estimate (2010, $47 billion). Putin worked in the mayors office in the early 1990s when Timchenko and his friends, Putin said, spun off an oil trading unit of the Kirishi oil refinery. But earlier this year the worlds wealthiest oil trader raised that profile, and did its reputation no harm, by becoming the first to deal with Libyas rebels, long before the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi. The report also details sales by a foreign Koch subsidiary of petrochemical equipment to Iran, which is subject to U.S. sanctions, and a history of criminal or civil penalties for oil spills, a deadly 1996 U.S. pipeline blast, and under-reporting of emissions of benzene, a carcinogen, from a Texas refinery in 1995. Enuit Hiring, Growing, and Focused on Next Version, Energy One Sees Early Success in 24 by 7 Services Market. Scale is going to be more important than ever.. People forget about it. Vitol also discreetly supplied Libyas rebels with $1 billion in fuel, Reuters has learned -- supplies they desperately needed to advance on Tripoli. We dont see the need to raise money from the market, Dunand said. https://buff.ly . It has grown into the worlds third-largest independent oil trader and second-largest industrial metals trader in less than 20 years, since it was set up in the early 1990s by Dauphin and fellow traders Eric de Turckheim and Graham Sharp. Trafigura was also quick to recognize the potential of storage in the industrial metals markets. WHO: Vitol, founded 1966 in Rotterdam by Henk Vietor and Jacques Detiger, WHERE: Geneva and Rotterdam WHAT: Oil, gas, power, coal, industrial metals, sugar, TURNOVER: $195 billion (2010) CEO: Ian Taylor STAFF: 2,700. 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. The top trading firms are price makers, said Chris Hinde, editor of London-based Mining Journal. 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. offers FT membership to read for free. He spent time trading metal in Hong Kong before moving to New York and a stint at commodities trading giant Phibro. Several of Fredriksens traders worked for BP in the early 2000s, where aggressive oil trading at Cushing turned huge profits, and also led to BP paying fines for alleged trading violations. The companys deal with Libyas rebels was a gamble. Top three executives lift stake in Mercuria | Financial Times If you do nothing, you will be auto-enrolled in our premium digital monthly subscription plan and retain complete access for 65 per month. ADM was fined $100 million by the U.S. government for antitrust violations. Dunand and Jaeggi first met studying economics at the University of Geneva in the late 1970s. He talked about how we are moving into action and investing in. 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. Thats what it is all about, Fredriksen said of the recent CFTC charges. Price premiums for immediate supply spiked, sapping margins for refiners worldwide. But to involve Mr Putin and any of his staff in this dialogue is speculation, he added. You may change or cancel your subscription or trial at any time online. Fredriksens traders then hurriedly sold the physical crude at a loss, the CFTC lawsuit claims, ending expectations for tight supplies. I never interfered with anything related to his business interests, I hope he will not stick his nose into my business either, Putin said. The Koch brothers, Chairman and CEO Charles and co-owner David Koch, are high-profile supporters of libertarian and anti-regulation U.S. politics. How big are the biggest trading houses? Commodities other than oil now represent more than 50 percent of revenue, which totaled $98 billion in 2012 and generated $343 million in profit, according to financial statements seen by Bloomberg. The French trading giant approached Olam with a merger proposal in 2010, but talks failed earlier this year. That strategy has often succeeded, though last month it found itself at the center of a dispute in the newly minted nation of South Sudan. Vitol says it is happy with its private status and has no IPO plans. The business has grown to 890 employees in 28 countries with a turnover at $75 billion, trading almost 120 million tonnes of oil, coal and gas. In 2006, J+S was raided by the Polish authorities in connection with an investigation into oil trading in Poland. Dunand, chairman and chief executive, and Jaeggi, head of global trading, used Mercuria to expand their trading base from crude and oil products. Investors can forget about buying shares in the wildly profitable, family-run firm any time soon. Arcadia often trades large volumes of oil from Nigeria and Yemen, where it boasts close relationships with state oil firms. Like rival Vitol, Trafigura has seized the opportunity to get into oil storage as oil majors focus on production. These days, Olam has upstream operations in everything from a coffee plantation in Laos to a rice business in Thailand, from almonds in Australia to cashews in Africa. Trading houses have huge volumes of proprietary trading. Big trading firms now own a growing number of the mines that produce many of our commodities, the ships and pipelines that carry them, and the warehouses, silos and ports where they are stored. No suggestions of wrong-doing were leveled against Dunand or Jaeggi. Lim Oon Kuin arrived in Singapore from China over 50 years ago, and started to deliver diesel by bicycle to boatmen. . Some transgressions make headlines. Insight Conversation: Marco Dunand, Mercuria - S&P Global Simply log into Settings & Account and select "Cancel" on the right-hand side. It owns processing plants, railcars, trucks, river barges and ships. Founded in 1988 by Japanese trading giant Mitsui Inc., it was sued in 2000 by independent US refiner Tosco for allegedly conspiring to jack up prices of European benchmark Brent oil by cornering part of the North Sea physical crude market. But make no mistake, if you perform well at Koch, you are richly rewarded in salary terms, the person added. Cargill, as well as fellow U.S. commodity trading firms Bunge and ADM, agreed to undertake a public relations effort with the goal of creating a political problem for the Government of Ukraine, according to a 2007 diplomatic cable by the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine that was obtained by WikiLeaks and made available to Reuters by a third party. Executives of Illinois-based ADM, formerly Archer Daniels Midland, were jailed for an early 1990s international price-fixing conspiracy for animal feed additive lysine. Together with Glencore, it pre-qualified to bid for exploration rights in Iraq in a licensing round next year that that could add the Iraqi upstream to its offshore West Africa operations. Founded in 2004, Mercuria Energy Trading is one of the world's biggest independent energy traders . The futures market may take some of that information and run with it. When spot and futures prices began to converge, Koch would quietly slip crude from the ships into its onshore pipelines. One of the things that gives us an advantage is that were working in the physical markets as well so (we can) absorb all that information and make the calls.. The Kochs have denied funding the Tea Party, but their empires far-reaching tentacles in the political arena have spawned a nickname: the Kochtopus. WHO: Noble Group, founded 1986 by UK scrap metal man Richard Elman. and other data for a number of reasons, such as keeping FT Sites reliable and secure, That figure is likely to change because of the addition of JPMorgans assets. Timchenko doesnt need to be told to keep a low profile. Oil Trader Mercuria's Ownership Structure Revealed in Filing The $5-billion refinery would pit Hin Leong against refineries already operated in Singapore by oil majors Shell, ExxonMobil and a joint venture between Chevron and Chinas PetroChina. Dunand says he and Jaeggi have no intention of selling the company they have built so swiftly, or launching an initial public share offering (IPO). Arcadia doesnt make its revenues public. With global sales of $108 billion in 2010, Cargill would have ranked No. Hes well on the way. Marco Dunand is Chief Executive Officer and co-founder of Mercuria Energy Group, one of the world's largest independent energy and commodities companies operating in more than 50 countries along the entire commodities value chain with a balanced combination of commodity flows and strategic assets. From the 43rd floor of a Rotterdam skyscraper, staff members can look out over a network of rivers toward some of Europes biggest refineries. Mercuria scores record profit amid oil market chaos A small Minnesota linseed crushing business more than a century ago, the firm is now is so big its financial performance is often viewed as a barometer of agribusiness as a whole. Their move to run their own empire came in 2004 when they founded Mercuria, raising capital from two Polish businessmen, Grzegorz Jankielewicz and Slawomir Smolokowski. He was later pardoned. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-03-07/behind-the-100-billion-commodity-empire-that-few-know.html, Disclaimer: This was news article was published by another website and was republished on the CTRM Center due to its informative merit and relative nature. Koch declined to discuss its trading with Reuters. Marco Dunand, who has helped build Mercuria into one of the world's biggest independent energy traders, said the crash in US crude prices into negative territory in April served as a wake-up. Noble quit its global liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) operations in 2010, a year it was censured in Nigeria for discrepancies in gasoline shipping lists. They see a business opportunity and they grab it with both hands without making a song and dance about it, said Russell Newton, a partner with St. Helier-based hedge fund Global Advisors (Jersey) Ltd., who has known Dunand and Jaeggi for about 25 years. Trading houses competed with banks for the spoils -- Glencore, Trafigura and Noble took one warehousing company each, Goldman and JP Morgan the others. Tucked away in a private forest an hours drive from the downtown high rises of mid-western Minnesota stands a brick mansion that strikes most visitors the same way: isolated, solid, regal, powerful. Mercuria Energy Group, Ltd - MarketsWiki, A Commonwealth of Market 3. Elman, the companys chairman, holds around 30 percent of the company. Arcadias chief executive in Singapore, Stephen Gibbons, denied the contents of the cable and told Reuters the kidnapping allegations were ludicrous. 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. Together, they are worth over a trillion dollars in annual revenue and control more than half the world's freely traded commodities. That experience defined the trading strategies of Dunand and Jaeggi who moved from Phibro to start Sempras European and Asian trading business in 1999 before founding Mercuria in 2004. Van der Velden took the reins of a company on a roll. In June, it invested $50 million in a Romanian gas producer. Chinese state funds have flowed into Noble and private Asian traders. Dunand and Jaeggi are Mercurias largest shareholders but an employee share ownership scheme holds around 40 percent of the company. 2. Tornqvist says Gunvors goal is to become a truly global company. We havent seen this pace of population growth in our living memory, Verghese told a conference in Singapore late last year. 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. 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. Many amass speculative positions worth billions in raw goods, or hoard commodities in warehouses and super-tankers during periods of tight supply. Mercuria will dramatically reduce it, he said. We have a system that monitors the supply and demand needs, because often times they are working independently. 100% Granted (3 out of 3) 0% Denied ( out of 3) 0% Withdrawn ( out of 3) 0% Certified-Withdrawn ( out of 3) This data was calculated using publicly sourced data from OFLC Performance Data. Known as OK Lim, the founder of Singapores Hin Leong Group wants to build the company from oil trader into an integrated company. The Chinese state is funding nimble trading firms to do its bidding. Mercuria - Wikipedia Their reach is expanding. The firms traders, according to two industry sources, made a fortune for Koch in 2009-10 during a contango in U.S. oil markets -- a period when oil for future delivery was higher priced than immediate cargoes. 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. In the palm oil business, for example, it owns plantations, mills, refiners, shippers, bottlers and the distribution network, in both the top producers, Indonesia and Malaysia, and the top consumers, India and China. Mercuria, the former owner of Vesta Terminal, entered into a joint venture with Sinopec by selling 50% of the terminals in 2013. Banks including JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley (MS) are exiting or reducing their commodities businesses as regulators crack down on risk. A master of physical markets, it owns a 4,000-mile U.S. pipeline network and three of the countrys most profitable refineries. Jaeggi, the head of trading, operates more in the background, conceiving trading positions. The company has spent six decades trying to keep it that way. Its meteoric growth has been piloted by a couple of the sharpest minds in commodities. If youd like to retain your premium access and save 20%, you can opt to pay annually at the end of the trial.