COMPANY NEWS - Van der Kam sets up new trading venture Viant, set to expand

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Archie Hunterarchie.hunter@fastmarkets.comDeputy Head of Physicals+44 (0) 20 7337 2143

London 20/05/2016 - René van der Kam has set up a new Singapore-based metals trading venture called Viant just three months after leaving his position as head of base metals at Gunvor.

Viant, which trades all non-ferrous metals, has received financial support from banks and large companies. The company has six employees at present, having only been operational for two weeks, but is set to make new additions shortly.

"It's growing quite quickly - we have some plans to expand in other parts of the world," van der Kam told FastMarkets on Friday.

Van der Kam left Gunvor after two years when the Estonia-founded Swiss trading house took the decision to scale back its metal trading business in February. He had previously been director of base metals at Noble and also worked at RBS Sempra, Barclays Capital and Enron.

And while the physical base metal trading business is currently going through some rocky times, van der Kam noted that conditions for smaller-scale merchant trading are improving.

"Obviously, you have quite a few people who left the industry... with a lot of the transit trades out of China disappearing or the margins getting so thin," he said. "That means... the traditional merchant business is coming back and that's what we'll be doing and that's what we're good at."


(Editing by Mark Shaw)



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