London 14/10/2016 - Simon Maddocks and James Newman are leaving CWT Commodities after the warehousing operator decided to close its London office, Metal Bulletin has learned.
Maddocks, ceo at CWT Commodities (Metals) Pte Ltd, will leave the company at the end of the year while Newman, its business development manager, is already on gardening leave. Both were based in London and reported to managing director Adam Slater in Singapore.
Maddocks has nearly 20 years of experience in the warehousing industry - he spent more than 11 years at CWT Commodities in Singapore and in London. Previously, he worked for the Pacorini group in Dubai and for Keystore Ltd in Hull in the UK.
Newman had worked at CWT Commodities for seven years.
Parent company C&P Holdings put CWT Ltd, including CWT Commodities, up for sale this year. CWT Ltd said in May that it had entered into exclusive negotiations with a subsidiary of Chinese conglomerate HNA Group in relation to a potential transaction. There has been no update since then.
CWT Commodities has been under pressure in the past two years from aggressive competitors offering very attractive warehouse rents and incentives to get metal into their sheds. This has made day-to-day business tougher at the warehouser although the unit was still profitable, Metal Bulletin understands.
CWT Commodities still has 12 LME-registered warehouses, down from 15 at the start of the year, including five in Europe and seven in Asia. The operator has reportedly lost stocks to competitors, especially in Europe and more recently in Singapore, but it has also taken steps to replace that tonnage.
The company also offers logistics services such as collateral management, freight forwarding and shipping. It also has physical warehousing operations in countries such as China and Turkey as well as a freight logistics business called Globelink.
(Editing by Mark Shaw)