Glencore Plc lost its head of crude trading in the US, Guy Freshwater, adding to a string of oil-trader departures. Ricardo Gomez also left the oil desk.
(Bloomberg) — Glencore Plc lost its head of crude trading in the US, Guy Freshwater, adding to a string of oil-trader departures. Ricardo Gomez also left the oil desk.
Freshwater left the company last week, according to people with knowledge of the situation who asked not to be named because they aren’t authorized to speak publicly. Gomez departed in August after a 24-year run with the company, with the last four of his years spent in business development for Latin America, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
The moves come after traders David Keller and Gautam Kumar exited in July and August, respectively.
Commodity-trading companies posted blockbuster profits in 2022 that sparked some of the biggest bonus payments ever to their employees. This year, there’s been a wave of people moves in the industry after the massive payouts.
At Glencore last year, the trading division generated record core profit — or adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization — of $6.8 billion, mainly driven by a surge in volatility resulting from the war in Ukraine.
At least one of the recent Glencore departures comes after the company’s significant bonus payment to its traders in March, one of the people said.
Glencore declined to comment on the departures.
Freshwater, who worked out of the New York city office, spent the last 20 years building Glencore’s oil operations in the US and UK. His tenure was marked by controversy after a former female employee, working under his purview, accused Glencore of gender discrimination, discrimination based on pregnancy and of fostering a hostile work environment. The suit, filed in 2018 in federal court in Connecticut, was voluntarily dismissed a year later with prejudice after arbitration proceedings.
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