METALS PEOPLE - Wave of departures at ICBC Standard Bank

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Metal Bulletin - by Mark Burton, mburton@metalbull - London 22/09/2016 - Several members of ICBC Standard Bank's base metals team have left the company, including head of trading Mark Thompson, sources told Metal Bulletin.

Copper trader Martin O'Neill and base metals analyst Leon Westgate have also left the company, as has a sales representative in Singapore, a market source familiar with the matter said. Another source said between six and eight staff have left the company in total.

The departures come after ICBC bought a controlling stake in Standard Bank's London operations in a deal worth $690 million in February 2015.

The sale was originally announced in January 2014 but was not completed until the following year. Standard Bank was one of several banks ensnared in the warehouse receipt fraud in the Chinese port of Qingdao; ICBC injected $300 million into the business at the time of the acquisition to cover losses arising from its exposure.

Earlier this year, ICBC, the world's second-largest bank by assets, also bought Barclays' precious metals vaults in London earlier this year as part of its expansion into global commodities markets.

ICBC Standard Bank did not respond to a request for comment. O’Neill declined to comment, Westgate did not respond a request for comment and Thompson could not be reached.

Reagan Nettleingham in London and Shen Lu in Shanghai also left the company a few months ago, FastMarkets understands.

Metal Bulletin, the global metals and mining price reporting agency, recently acquired 100 percent of the shares of FastMarkets Ltd.



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