London 08/09/2016 - Alexander Nizan, director of metals at Noble Group, is leaving the firm after 14 years, FastMarkets understands.
Nizan became director of metals trading at the firm in October last year, having previously led the group's warehousing business, Worldwide Warehouse Solutions (WWS), for two years. He was an aluminium trader for Noble before that.
The metals and mining business at Noble Group swung to the red in the April-June quarter of this year, with the segment reporting a $20-million loss after the company completed its base metal business exit in North America and Europe.
Noble has had a series of departures in its metal trading team in the past year. In August a handful of traders in China left, including Ouyang Xiuzhang, the head of Asia energy and metals.
The group has been looking at reallocating capital from capital-intensive businesses such as metals to less capital-intensive businesses such as a oil, coal and ferrous metals, a company press officer told FastMarkets last month.
In May, Noble's then-CEO Yusuf Alireza resigned while in October last year a group of former Noble traders left to set up a new trading house called Concord Resources.
Noble's former global head of metals, Mark Hansen; physicals trader, Scott Evans; US-based Jeff Romanek; Singapore-based Felix Cauro; as well as David Freeland, Paul Wilkes (also known as Monty) and Kazumitsu Futatsuka in London have all joined the new venture, which is backed by private investors including Ospraie management's Dwight Anderson.
(Editing by Mark Shaw)