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Jean-Rene Bourlot is back. According to the Financial Times, he’s joining UBS as head of commodities. This is because, after closing its commodities team a year ago, UBS is….rebuilding it again. But who is Jean? And why is he so, ‘colourful’? 1) He’s a graduate of the European business school in Paris Jean Boulot is French. As such, he appears to have gone to this Parisian business school. Surprisingly, it is not... Read more

JPMorgan’s commodities business hasn’t been having a good year. Chan Bhima lost $130m on a disastrous coal trade. And up to 50 commodities salepeople and traders, most of them in London, have been made redundant following the purchase of RBS Sempra. Credit Suisse, on the other hand, is supposed to be growing its commodities operations. Its recent graphic on where growth will come from, depicted commodities as having, ‘upside potential,’... Read more

BofA Merrill Lynch is known to be indulging in a bit of FICC hiring. Its fixed income business was trimmed particularly enthusiastically in 2008 and early 2009, and there has been a need to make amends. A rumour doing the rounds in London suggests the restitution is extreme: around 175 people are currently said to be tending their gardens in anticipation of joining BofA Merrill’s FICC unit later this year. The bank... Read more

The Financial Times has got hold of a bond prospectus issued by the secretive Swiss trading house Trafigura. It reveals a surprising level of profitability. Trafigura has declined to share its prospectus with us, but based on the FT’s report of its contents we can disclose that in 2009 Trafigura made a profit of $1bn. This was more than double the profit it made in 2008 and more than double what... Read more

Monday was Clifford Sacks’ first day as Ceo South Africa and head of Pan-African equities for Renaissance Capital, the Russian investment bank that is expanding aggressively in emerging markets. Before joining RenCap, Sacks, who is South African, was co-Ceo for SA and Sub-Saharan Africa at BoA Merrill Lynch, a well-respected investment banker with twenty years’ experience and a deep knowledge of African equities. His task is to open and staff a... Read more

The party may be over for fixed income, currency and commodity (FICC) professionals. At last week’s investor day, JP Morgan said margins in the fixed income business were down 50% and likely to stay that way. US banking analyst Dick Bove says senior traders have told him they’re not making money. And yesterday Bove cut his earnings estimates for Goldman on the grounds that trading activity has been disappointing, ‘across... Read more

Fortune Magazine has an interesting article about John Arnold, CEO of Houston-based commodities hedge fund Centaurus. Among other things, it transpires that Arnold has a nervous stutter and drinks lots of water. We also learn that he grew up in Dallas, attended Vanderbilt University, and began his trading career as a trainee at Enron, where he reportedly earned the firm $750m in 2001. When Enron blew up, he moved to UBS,... Read more

The Financial Times has an interesting article today on the not-totally-unpredictable side effects of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s clampdown on commodities futures trading: investors are buying a lot more physical commodities instead. Investors’ alleged interest in physicals coincides with reports that someone is hoarding tin across warehouses in London. It also follows Deutsche Bank’s recent partnership with sugar mer... Read more

Having met with various UK banks and persuaded them to adhere to its new bonus guidelines (no multi-year guarantees, 40-60% deferrals, clawbacks, lots of stock), the Treasury is now getting ready to invite international banks in London over for tea and cakes in the hope that they’ll swallow the same package. The Telegraph reports that JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, UBS and Morgan Stanley are all likely to be invited... Read more

After a period of relative inaction, hiring in the UK commodities sector is picking up once again. It might not be quite at the astronomical levels in Asia, but banks are still trying to lock in top talent in an attempt to stop them jumping ship for competitors with ambitious growth plans. Nomura is the latest bank to unveil plans to expand into commodities, and Sociéte Générale says it's... Read more

Geneva’s preeminence in oil trading is an ominous warning of what could happen to the City if banks decide the UK tax system is too onerous.Over the past decade the Swiss city has cemented its status as a European oil trading hub, attracting trading houses such as Gunvor, Mercuria, and Sempra Energy Trading, so that it’s now on a par with London as Europe’s leading oil trading centre.The resulting cluster... Read more

As we noted last week, commodities traders are experiencing a resurgence in popularity. Barclays wants around 20 commodities traders and has reputedly paid generously for five so far, Bank of America and Morgan Stanley are also said to be hiring. Now SocGen has joined the throng. Bloomberg reports that the French bank wants to double the size of its commodities team, hiring 35 salespeople and traders plus 35 commodities support... Read more

Commodities is fast becoming one of the places to be if you want to earn big bucks this year. Barclays Capital is rumoured to have offered five JPMorgan commodity traders £30m to move, but other banks also seem willing to dig deep. Bloomberg reports that a surge in oil and copper prices are spurring firms to recruit commodities traders once again, and those at the top of their game are... Read more

On the other side of the Atlantic, commodity traders are suffering a spate of unpopularity. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission is conducting a study into whether speculation in futures markets helped pump commodity prices last year. Oil speculators are being portrayed as particularly nasty after they allegedly helped propel crude prices to $147 a barrel in March 2008. The CFTC already regulates agricultural futures contracts held by investors (as opposed to traders... Read more

Supplementary to its recruitment of 750 people into its global equities business , BarCap is also indulging in a little commodities hiring. We’re not talking big numbers: it only wants 20, but they’re all traders and BarCap has already expanded its commodities group from 240 to 320 people this year.Recruiters tell us BarCap has already been hiring commodities people in London, as has JPMorgan, which declared its intention of expanding in commodities... Read more

In an apparent sign that being fired for gross misconduct need not be the immediate end of your career, it appears that David Redmond, the Morgan Stanley trader feted for placing an order every eight seconds for two and a half hours following a liquid lunch, may have gone from Morgan Stanley to Barclays Capital. Redmond was banned for two years yesterday by the FSA for trying to conceal his trades.... Read more

Expansion into Africa is serving South African banks well and providing significant opportunities for employment. Standard Bank, the continent’s largest, has pursued the most active and successful African diversification strategy. In 2008 profit from its African operations increased by 46% to R1.8bn, a performance Standard Bank Ceo Jacko Maree has described as “unbelievable”. Determined to strengthen its footprint in the 16 countries outside South Africa it operates in and also... Read more

This time last year, commodities desks were happily expanding as other areas of financial services talked about cut-backs. However, recent redundancy announcements have shown the sector isn’t entirely immune, but do some job opportunities still remain? The good news is that business still appears to be going fairly well. In the latest round of increasingly dire quarterly reports, the likes of JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley reported strong or record... Read more