I hate him.
From Bloomberg, September 21:
A couple of months ago, the man in line to be Trafigura’s next chief executive officer, Richard Holtum, gathered the commodity trader’s staff in Singapore.
His message was a simple one, according to several people who were there: it’s time to set aside distractions and focus on what’s most important — making money.
The address, with its echoes of Gordon Gekko’s famous “Greed is good” speech in the film Wall Street, was typical of Holtum, according to 11 people who have worked with him, who spoke to Bloomberg on condition of anonymity.
After a spectacularly rapid ascent through the ranks of Trafigura, the 39-year-old is poised to become the third chief executive in the company’s history. Little known outside Trafigura, people who have dealt with him describe him as ambitious and direct, with a razor-like focus on profits.
Holtum joined Trafigura a decade ago through a junior trader program, but by 2019 was already running the company’s global gas business — a role that has since expanded to include power and renewable energy. The operations, once an afterthought to Trafigura’s traditional businesses trading metals and oil, have grown sharply to become a key profit driver, supercharged by the energy crisis that followed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Trafigura, which declined to comment on the details in this story, is preparing for a leadership handover to Holtum, people familiar with the matter said this week. Current CEO Jeremy Weir is expected to stay on as chairman.
“He’s had a stellar rise,” said Orhan Gunes, a commodity financier who now runs trade finance platform TradeQraft. “Becoming the head of department so quickly and then becoming CEO is kind of exceptional.”
For Trafigura, the CEO handover comes at a pivotal moment. The company, which began life as a scrappy outsider, has never been so large and powerful, vying with Vitol Group and Glencore Plc for the title of the world’s largest commodity trading house and notching up profits of over $17 billion in the previous three years...
....MUCH MORE
Nah, I don't hate him, I just hope he can get Trafigura out of the manipulating markets business.
Or have the courtesy to call me before they commence a bear raid.
