The world’s largest commodity trading houses have revealed how they are courting outside investors including private equity firms and sovereign wealth funds as they seek to expand beyond their traditional business of buying and selling raw materials.
The alliance with private equity and SWFs could help trading houses avoid the need to follow the model of Glencore, whose multibillion-dollar flotation in London last year thrust the industry into the limelight, senior executives at leading traders told the Financial Times Global Commodities Summit in Lausanne.
The Swiss-based trading industry has traditionally been owned by its employees and funded by European banks, but a push to buy mines and oilfields as well as distribution assets has created a greater requirement for capital.