London 01/02/2016 - Swiss commodities trader Gunvor will lower its exposure to base metals, with a slew of traders leaving the company.
Physical traders Rene Van der Kam, Julie Zhu Yingping, Vadim Linchevsky and Shawn Liu Siyao will all shortly leave the company, which is unwinding its base metal positions, sources told FastMarkets.
Gunvor corporate affairs director Seth Pietras confirmed to FastMarkets that the company would scale back its base metals business and is looking to liquidate warehousing positions and that senior traders would be leaving.
"We will be maintaining a core team," Pietras said, adding that speciality products, precious metals and iron ore trading will not be affected.
Still, other sources claimed that Gunvor is mulling a complete withdrawal from base metals, with traders such as Jean-Marc Noe staying on to wind down sizeable positions.
"They're done with metals and exiting the business. They may stay in some niche markets like specialty alloys but that's all. A few people are staying on to wind down the positions, which are especially big in Asia," a well-informed source said.
Pietras declined to comment.
Gunvor was established in Estonia in 2000 by investors Gennady Timchenko and Torbjorn Tornqvist; the company actually takes its name from Tornqvist's mother, which means "careful fighting" in Swedish.
It is now owned 78 percent by Tornqvist, with the remaining 22 percent belonging to employees.
Primarily an oil and petroleum products trader, Gunvor was one of several energy trading companies that has moved into base metals, alongside Mercuria. It opened an office in Shanghai in May 2014, planning to trade base metals in the world's biggest consumer.
(Additional reporting by Perrine Faye, Vicky Chen and Ian Walker, editing by Mark Shaw)